e-Pages: How?

[barclay_barrios]

So before we even got to discussing our reading from Emerging’s e-Pages in class, I ran into my first challenge: how do you cite an online selection in a print anthology? I’ve almost gotten the hang of the new MLA format for citations (emphasis on almost) but this is an entirely different beast—a truly hybrid one.  The question was tricky enough for me to run it by my editor who, in turn, ran it by one of Bedford’s handbooks editors, who finally suggested that it be cited with respect to its original format (thus, a short web piece would be cited as a short web piece, a video as a video, and so on). For the record, then, the citation for the Susan Rubin Erdely essay is:

Erdely, Susan Rubin. “Kiki Kannibal: The Girl Who Played with Fire.” E-Pages for Emerging: Contemporary Readings for Writers. Bedford St. Martin’s. n.d. Web. 25 Feb 2013.

Ugh. Complicated.  But it also suggests the challenge of citation in the digital age: formats change faster than citations and MLA and other organizations seem to be playing a never-ending game of catch up. There are of course other citation systems.  Has anyone jumped ship from MLA because of these sorts of issues?  I’d be curious to hear what you’ve tried and how it works with unconventional digital content.