Write to Excellence Center: MLA Style

Per the 5th Edition of the Little Seagull Handbook:

Formatting:

Name, course, title: MLA does not require a separate title page, unless your paper is a group project. In the upper left-hand corner of your first page, include your name, your instructor's name, the course name and number, and the date. Center the title of your paper on the line after the date; capitalize it as you would a book title. If your paper is a group project, include all that information on a title page instead, listing all the authors.

Page numbers: In the upper right-hand corner of each page, one-half inch below the top of the page, include your last name and the page number. If it's a group project and all the names don't fit, include only the page number. Number pages consecutively throughout your paper.

Typeface, spacing, margins, and indents: Choose a typeface that is easy to read (such as Times New Roman) and that provides a clear contrast between regular text and italic text. Set the font size between 11 and 13 points. Double-space the entire paper, including your works-cited list and any notes. Set one-inch margins at the top, bottom, and sides of your text; do not justify your text. The first line of each paragraph should be indented one-half inch from the left margin. End punctuation should be followed by one space.

Headings: Short essays do not generally need headings, but they can be useful in longer works. Use a large, bold font for the first level of heading, and smaller fonts and italics to signal lower-level headings. MLA requires that headings all be flush with the left margin.

Long quotations: When quoting more than three lines of poetry, more than four lines of prose, or dialogue between characters in a drama, set off the quotation from the rest of your text, indenting it one-half inch (or five spaces) from the left margin. Do not use quotation marks and out any parenthetical documentation AFTER the final punctuation. 

Tables and illustrations: Insert illustrations and tables close to the text that discusses them and be sure to make clear how they relate to your point. For tables, provide a number (Table 1) and a title on separate lines above the table. Below the table, provide a caption with source information and any notes. Notes should be indicated with lowercase letters. For graphs, photos, and other figures, provide a figure number (Fig. 1) and caption with source information below the figure. Use a lowercase f when referring to a figure in your text: (fig. l). If you give only brief source information, use commas between elements-Zhu Wei, New Pictures of the Strikingly Bizarre #9, print, 2004— and include full source information in your list of works cited. If you give full source information in the caption, don't include the source in your list of works cited. Punctuate as you would in the works-cited list, but don't invert the author's name: Berenice Sydney. Fast Rhythm. 1972, Tate Britain, London.

List of works cited: Start your list on a new page, following any notes. Center the title, Works Cited and double-space the entire list. Begin each entry at the left margin and indent subsequent lines one-half inch (or five spaces). Alphabetize the list by authors* last names (or by editors' or translators' names, if appropriate). Alphabetize works with no author or editor by title, disregarding "A," "An," and "The."

In-Text Citations:

Whenever you quote, paraphrase, or summarize a source in your writing, you need to provide brief documentation that tells readers what you took from the source and where in the source you found that information. This brief documentation also refers readers to the full entry in your works-cited list, so begin with whatever comes first there: the author, the title, or a description of the source.

You can mention the author or title either with a signal phrase: Toni Morrison writes 

Or in parentheses: (Morrison).

If relevant, include pages or other details about where you found the information in the parenthetical reference: (Morrison 67).

 

If you mention the author in a signal phrase, put only the page number(s) in parentheses. DO NOT write "page" or "p." The first time you mention the author, use their first and last names. You can usually omit any middle initials: David McCullough describes John Adams's hands as those of someone used to manual labor (18).

 

If you do not mention the author in a signal phrase, put the author's last name in parentheses along with any page number(s). Do not use punctuation between the name and the page number(s): Adams is said to have had "the hands of a man accustomed to prunin his own trees, cutting his own hay, and splitting his own firewood" (McCullough 18).

Shorten any lengthy titles or descriptions in parentheses by including the first noun with any preceding adjectives and omitting any initial articles: (Norton Field Guide for The Norton Field Guide to Writing).

If the title doesn't start with a noun, use the first phrase or clause: (How to Be for How to Be an Antiracist).

Use the full title if it's short (or if you want to play it safe).

Works Cited Page:

A works-cited list provides full bibliographic information for every source cited in your text.

Core elements in a work's cited entry:

• Author
• Title of the source
• Title of any "container," a larger work in which the source is found— an anthology, a website, a journal or magazine, a database, a streaming service like Netflix, or a learning management system, among others
• Editor, translator, director, or other contributors
• Version
• Number of volume and issue, episode and season
• Publisher
• Date of publication
• Location of the source: page numbers, DOI, PERMALINK, URL, etc.

Works cited entry for a book: Author's last name, First name. Title. Publisher, Date.

Works cited entry for an article: Author's last name, First name. "Title of Article." Name of Journal, Volume, Issue, Date, Pages.

Works cited entry for a website: Author's last name, First name. "Title of Article." Name of Publication, Date, URL.