Here is bibliographic information about an article from the New York Times Web site. Select the citation that correctly uses MLA style, 9th edition, for the entry in the Works Cited list. (Hint: not all the information below will be used.)

Article title: "Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study"

By Sapna Maheshwari

Publisher: The New York Times

Date of publication: Nov. 20, 2016

Access date by student: Dec. 5, 2016

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html

Question

Here is bibliographic information about an article from the New York Times Web site. Select the citation that correctly uses MLA style, 9th edition, for the entry in the Works Cited list. (Hint: not all the information below will be used.)

Article title: "Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study"

By Sapna Maheshwari

Publisher: The New York Times

Date of publication: Nov. 20, 2016

Access date by student: Dec. 5, 2016

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Question restatement: You are asked to select the MLA 9th edition Works Cited entry for the given NYT article. The supplied correct answer is: Maheshwari, Sapna. "Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study." The New York Times, 20 Nov. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html

Option analysis:
- Correct option (as provided): Maheshwari, Sapna. "Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study." The New York Times, 20 Nov. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html
  This entry aligns with MLA 9th edition guidelines for a magazine/newspaper article with an online source. The author’s name is inverted (Last, First) as Maheshwari, Sapna. The article title is in quotation marks, followed by the container title The New York Times in italics (represented here by capitalization and word order), the publication date in day-month year format (20 Nov. 2016), and the URL. In MLA 9th edition, an access date is optional and not required if a stable URL is provided; since an access date is not included in this citation, it is consistent with a typical MLA citation when the publication date and URL are available.
  Note: Some instructors might require the URL to be presented without the https:// prefix; the given entry omits it, which matches common MLA practice for readability. The entry does not include an explicit page number, which is normal for online newspaper articles that are not paginated.

- Absence of alternative options: No other answer choices are provided in the question data. Therefore, there is nothing to evaluate against the other plausible MLA 9th ed. formats (such as including an access date, using a different punctuation, or ordering). This means we cannot critique non-existent distractors, but we can affirm that the supplied option follows MLA 9th ed. conventions for an online newspaper article.

- Potential pitfalls to watch for in MLA 9th ed. formatting (relevant to similar tasks): ensure the author is listed as Last, First name; place the article title in quotation marks; place the container (newspaper) title in title case and italics; provide the publication date in day-month year format; include the URL without extra labeling; and consider whether an access date is required by your instructor. The given citation adheres to these general rules for MLA 9th.

- Why alternative, non-existent options cannot be evaluated here: since no other choices are present, we cannot assess which would be correct or incorrect, nor discuss how they would deviate from MLA 9th conventions. The evaluation is therefore limited to validating the provided option against standard MLA conventions as described above.

In summary, the given citation demonstrates appropriate MLA 9th edition formatting for a newspaper article viewed online, containing the author, article title, container title, publication date, and URL, in the order and punctuation consistent with typical MLA guidance. The absence of an access date is acceptable when a stable URL is available and institutional style does not require it.

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