Paper and materials
Use good-quality 8-1/2″ × 11″ white paper. Secure the pages with a paper clip. Unless your instructor suggests otherwise, do not staple or bind the pages.
Avoid a font that is unusual or hard to read.
Title and identification
MLA does not require a title page. Place your name, your instructor’s name, the course title, and the date on separate lines against the left margin. Then center your title.
The alternative title page linked here may be acceptable.
Sample MLA title page
Sample alternative MLA title page
Pagination
Put the page number preceded by your last name in the upper right corner of each page, one-half inch below the top edge. Use arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, and so on).
Margins, line spacing, and paragraph indents
Set margins to one inch on all sides of the page. Left-align the text.
Double-space throughout the paper. Do not add extra line spaces above or below the title of the paper or between paragraphs.
Indent the first line of each paragraph one-half inch from the left margin. Set a tab using the ruler bar or define an indented paragraph style using the style sheet.
Capitalization
In titles of works, capitalize all words except articles (a, an, the), prepositions (to, from, between, and so on), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet), and the to in infinitives—unless they are the first or last word of the title or subtitle. Follow these guidelines in your paper even if the title appears in all capital or all lowercase letters in the source.
In the text of an MLA paper, when a complete sentence follows a colon, lowercase the first word following the colon unless the sentence is a well-known expression or principle.
Italics
Italicize the titles of books and other long works, such as Web sites. Use quotation marks around the titles of periodical articles, short stories, poems, and other short works. (Some instructors may prefer underlining for the titles of long works. Be consistent throughout your paper.)
Long quotations
When a quotation is longer than four typed lines of prose or three lines of verse, indent the entire quotation one inch from the left margin (block indent). Double-space the indented quotation, and don’t add extra space above or below it. Quotation marks are not needed when a quotation has been set off from the text by indenting.
Sample indented (block) quotation
Web addresses
When a Web address (URL) mentioned in the text of your paper must be divided at the end of a line, do not insert a hyphen because a hyphen could appear to be part of the address. Also see Dividing Web addresses in the works cited list.
Headings
MLA neither encourages nor discourages the use of headings and currently provides no guidelines for their use. If you would like to insert headings in a long essay or research paper, check first with your instructor.
Sample headings in an MLA paper
Visuals
MLA classifies visuals as either tables or figures (figures include graphs, charts, maps, photographs, and drawings). Label each table with an arabic numeral (Table 1, Table 2, and so on) and provide a clear caption that identifies the subject. Capitalize the caption as you would a title; do not italicize the label and caption or place them in quotation marks.
For a table that you have borrowed or adapted, give the source below the table in a note like this one:
Source: David N. Greenfield and Richard A. Davis, “Lost in Cyberspace: The Web @ Work,” Cyberpsychology and Behavior 5 (2002): 349.
For each figure, place the figure number (using the abbreviation “Fig.”) and a caption below the figure, flush left. Capitalize the caption as you would a sentence; include source information following the caption. (When referring to the figure in your paper, use the abbreviation “fig.” in parenthetical citations; otherwise spell out the word.)
Place visuals in the text, as close as possible to the sentences that relate to them unless your instructor prefers them in an appendix.
Sample visual in an MLA paper
block indent Indentation of a section of text from the left and sometimes also the right margin.