General Formatting (MLA 1.1, 1.2)
- Margins are 1" from both side, top, and bottom.
- Use Times New Roman size 12 font.
- Double space all lines.
- Running head: in the right corner, one-half inch from the top, put the last name of the author(s) and the page number (Ex. Smith 1).
Heading (MLA 1.3)
- At the top left of the page, list the following on separate lines:
- Writer's Name(s)
- Instructor's Name(s)
- Course Number (Ex.: English 5)
- Date (Number Month Year; Ex.: 2 April 2020)
- NOTE: your instructor may prefer that you use a title page, in which case move all the information in the header and title to its own page starting one-quarter of the way from the top of the page.
Title (MLA 1.3)
- On the line immediately after the date in the header.
- Centered.
- Use plain text (not bold, italicized, underlined, or in quotation marks).
- Capitalize all words except articles and prepositions.
- NOTE: your instructor may prefer that you use a title page, in which case move all the information in the header and title to its own page starting one-quarter of the way from the top of the page.
Text (MLA 1.2)
- Indent the first line of every paragraph by a half-inch.
- Quotes:
- Short quotes can be surrounded by quotation marks and inserted in the lines of the text.
- Long quotes do not use quotation marks and are separated out onto their own lines, all of which begin one-half inch from the left margin.
- Do not hyphenate words in order to separate them onto two separate lines. This often happens because your document is not set to left justify or because you have auto-hyphenate on.
- The punctuation mark at the end of a sentence is followed by a single space.
Works Cited (MLA 1.6)
- Begin on a new page.
- Center the title "Works Cited" (if there is only one entry, title "Work Cited").
- The first line of a citation is flush left and any subsequent lines are indented one-half inch from the left (a.k.a. a "hanging indent").
- Alphabetize the list by first word in the citation.
- See more guidelines in the Works Cited tab.
