Linda Schwartz, associate professor of English at Coastal Carolina University, has published a textbook designed to assist students in writing and documenting research papers. The Harcourt Guide to MLA Documentation, published in late August 2000 by Harcourt College Publishers, teaches students to use standard documentation methods recommended by the Modern Language Association (MLA), a national organization of English professors.

The text is primarily designed to be used by undergraduate college students, but it is also suitable for upper level high school students or for anyone else writing research papers using the MLA style of documentation. It takes students through the entire process of writing a research paper. The new text provides students with guidance for doing research in a university library and on the Internet and explains in depth the process of evaluating the reliability of Internet sources. A unique feature of the new book is its chapter on documenting research materials taken from online and print reference databases.

Schwartzos text features model research papers written by Jessica Lynn Piezzo, a Coastal student majoring in psychology and by William E. Files, a North Carolina School of the Arts student who attended summer school at Coastal.

The Harcourt Guide to MLA Documentation is currently being used in freshman, sophomore and upper level English, business and interdisciplinary studies classes at Coastal and is being marketed to professors throughout the United States.

Schwartz, who was educated at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, joined the Coastal faculty in 1968. She was director of freshman composition at Coastal from 1982 until 1996. Her earlier publications include The Schwartz Guide to MLA Documentation, published by McGraw-Hill in 1998.