Academic Writing: MLA Works Cited and Paper Format

The Modern Language Association (MLA) publishes a Handbook and a Style Guide every year or two. These are reference resources used by most researchers in the Humanities. The library has a print copy you can consult.

This library guide provides an overview of MLA citations and formatting your research papers. It includes tutorials, examples and assistance designed for high school academic writing. Use it to help you format your papers and presentations. Consult the Handbook itself, the authoritative source, if you find a curious source or have a more complex formatting question. 

Purdue University's Online Writing Laboratory (OWL) is an excellent source for more detailed information and examples. You will use this source throughout your high school and college years, if not longer.

Start creating your Works Cited early in the research process. Add an MLA citation for potential "keepers" to your Works Cited or citation manager tool.

You can easily delete an entry from your Works Cited later, if you decide you will not use it in your paper.

Creating a draft Works Cited early also makes in-text citations much easier. 

• Times New Roman, 12-point font
• Double-spaced
• One inch margins all around
• Header, upper left hand corner: contains your name,  your teacher's name (Ms./Mr. Smith), the course name, the date you turn it in (DD Month YYYY)
• Header, upper right hand corner: contains your last name and the page number (including page 1) 
• Title of your paper is centered. No underline or italics.
• Indent each body paragraph

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