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Guide to MLA Formatting and Style

The Modern Language Association (MLA) provides the style guidelines for the formatting of research papers in a number of academic disciplines. Below is a brief overview on how to format your paper using MLA’s style guides. Unless otherwise noted by your professor, these guidelines should be followed for all papers submitted in face-to-face and online courses. Students should use Microsoft Word for all typed assignments. If you don’t have Microsoft Word, it is recommend that you use Open Office, an excellent free software package. You can download it at http://www.openoffice.org.

Paper Format Guidelines

• The page layout should be set to 1" margins on all sides.
• All papers are to be double-spaced.
• The font for the entire document should be set at 12 pt. and should be either Arial or Times New Roman.

Title Block

MLA guidelines dictate that there should not be a separate title page. Every paper should be left justified and begin with the following information:

• Student's first and last name
• Professor’s name
• Course
• Date (day, month, year)
• Title (centered)
• Titles should be original and reflect the content of the paper.

Example:

Header

Papers should have a header including the student’s last name and page number.

1. In Microsoft Word select View from the menu options at the top of the screen.
2. Click Header and Footer. The header section will appear on your document inside a gray dotted square. Inside the square you will see a flashing cursor.
3. On the menu bar just above the ruler, click the Align Right icon (it looks like four lines aligned to the right).
4. Type your Last Name.
5. Add a single blank space after your name.
6. On the floating menu bar, click the Insert Page Number icon (looks like a number symbol in a page). It will automatically place the current page number on every page of your report.
7. Click Close to return back to your document. You can look at the top right-hand section of your page to see the header. It appears faint, to remind you that it is automatic; when you print your paper it will not appear faded.

Citations

All citations are inserted parenthetically with the author’s last name and page number. All citations should be referenced at the end of the documents on a Works Cited page.

Example:

Note: You should not use a comma between the author’s last name and page number, nor should you use “pg.” or “p” before the page number.

Long Quotations

Any quotation longer than four lines should be indented as a “block quotation.” The entire quotation is indented twice without “ ” quotation marks. The author’s last name and page number go in parentheses after the period.

Example:

Works Cited

A reference list of all the works you cite in your paper must be included at the end of your document.

To insert a new page:

• In Microsoft Word select Insert from the menu options at the top of the screen.
• Select Break
• Select Page Break

This new page should be titled Works Cited, with the title centered at the top of the page.

• Your entries should be in alphabetical order by author's last name.
• The first line of each entry should be left justified; subsequent lines in each entry should be indented. By setting your hanging indents to 0.5" Microsoft Word will do this automatically for you.

To set hanging indents:

• In Microsoft Word select Format from the menu options at the top of the screen.
• Select Paragraph
• Find the section labeled Indentation,
• Under Special select Hanging
• Set the indentation to 0.5"

Note: All sources should be cited including anything found on the Internet (i.e., Google, Wikipedia, etc.).

Sample Works Cited Page

Below is a sample Works Cited page. The type of entry is noted in parenthesis and red font; this information is for reference purposes only and should not be included on actual Works Cited pages.