How to format in Modern Language Association (MLA)

The MLA style of formatting and citation is often used in literature and other humanities such as language and liberal arts. MLA stands for Modern Language Association. Current students and professionals use the 8th edition of MLA formatting, a format released in April 2016. 

 

Starting with the basics: 

Your document should be double-spaced. 

You should use Times New Roman at a 12 pt size. 

You should set margins to 1 inch on all sides. 

You should use only one space after punctuations. 

you should indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch from the left margin. (you can do this only by using the Tab key or by pressing the spacebar five times). 

It would be best if you used italics throughout your document to indicate a title. 

A title for the paper is not required in an MLA format unless specified by your instructor. 

 

Section Headings 

You can divide your essay or paper into several section headings to increase convenience and readability. However, MLA does not have any specific prerequisites regarding section headings. However, MLA recommends that you stick to using a similar grammatical style for titles of the same level. You should also provide the key to indicate sub-heads if your headings are of different levels. 

CITATION 

MLA Citation may be classified into two categories:  

1. In-text citations and 

2. full-text citations 

MLA citations follow the following general order: 

The format followed for full- citations is: 

Author's Last name, First name. "Title of Source." Title of Container, other contributors, version, numbers, publisher, publication date, location. 

• Put a period after the author's name. 

• When you are citing a source in its entirety, use italics and quotation marks to do so. 

• The publisher should be placed in the citation before the date of publication. 

• While writing the date, including all the information you could find in the source, there are no specific instructions regarding formatting the date in particular but ensuring that you maintain it throughout the document once you start with a particular format. 

• Location indicates the source where you can find the document. If this is a URL, do not include the HTTP:// or HTTPS:// while citing the location. 

 

In-text citations: 

When you are paraphrasing information from a particular source or using a direct quote, you must use in-text citations to grant credibility to the original work and avoid plagiarism. In contrast to the APA form of authority, the MLA format uses the author's last name and the page number of the work cited in parentheses. You can format it in any of the two following ways: 

• "Direct quote" or Paraphrase (Author's last name and page number). 

OR 

• Author's Last Name states, "Direct Quote" or paraphrase (page number). 

In case your source is from a website without page numbers, you can any of the following abbreviations to make your work easier. 

• If the source has designated paragraph numbers, use par. or pars 

• If the source has designated sections, use sec. Or secs. 

• If the source has designated chapters, use ch. or CHS.