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MLA style: Formatting a Paper

In academic scholarship, researchers have agreed on specific guidelines about how to format their papers and how to cite their sources. This Guide provides an introduction to the MLA style.

Basic Principles

The MLA Handbook tells you to format your paper as follows:

  • 1 inch margins on all sides
  • header on all pages on the top left to include your last name and the page number
  • all text is double spaced
  • the first line of each text paragraph is indented by 1/2 inch
  • use 12 point font

 

How to format your MLA style paper

Top of the first page of your paper

 

Running Head with Page Numbers

Placement of the Works Cited list

graphic of margins and text elements

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