MLA Formatting General Guidelines

Type your paper on a computer using Microsoft Word through the SkyDrive and print it out on
standard, white 8.5 x 11-inch paper.

Double-space the text of your paper, and use a legible Calibri font. MLA recommends that the
regular and italics type styles contrast enough that they are recognizable one from another. The
font size should be 12 pt.

Leave two spaces after periods.

Set the margins of your document to 1 inch on all sides.

Indent the first line of paragraphs one half-inch from the left margin. MLA recommends that you
use the Tab key as opposed to pushing the Space Bar five times.

Create a header that numbers all pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner, one-half
inch from the top and flush with the right margin. Omit the number on your first page. Always
follow your instructor's guidelines.

Use italics throughout your essay for the titles of longer works and, only when absolutely
necessary, providing emphasis.

Formatting the First Page of Your Paper

Do not make a title page for your paper.

In the upper left-hand corner of the first page, list your name, your instructor's name, the course,
and the date. Again, be sure to use double-spaced text.

Double space again and center the title. Do not underline, italicize, or place your title in
quotation marks; write the title in Title Case (standard capitalization), not in all capital letters.

Use quotation marks and/or italics when referring to other works in your title, just as you would
in your text: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Morality Play; Human Weariness in "After
Apple Picking"

Double space between the title and the first line of the text.

Create a header in the upper right-hand corner that includes your last name, followed by a space
with a page number; number all pages consecutively with Arabic numerals (2, 3, 4, etc.), one-
half inch from the top and flush with the right margin. (Note: Omit last name/page number
header on your first page. Always follow instructor guidelines.)

MLA Works Cited Page

Basic Rules

Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper. It should
have the same one-inch margins and last name, page number header as the rest of your paper.

Label the page Works Cited (do not italicize or make bold the words “Works Cited” or put them
in quotation marks) and center the words “Works Cited” at the top of the page.

Double space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries.

Indent the second and subsequent lines of citations five spaces so that you create a hanging
indent (Use the arrows on the ruler to modify your tabs in Microsoft Word).

List page numbers of sources efficiently, when needed. If you refer to a journal article that
appeared on pages 225 through 250, list the page numbers on your Works Cited page as 225-50.

Additional Basic Rules New to MLA 2009

For every entry, you must determine the Medium of Publication. Most entries will likely be
listed as Print or Web sources, but other possibilities may include Film, CD-ROM, or DVD.

Writers are no longer required to provide URLs for Web entries. However, since your instructor
insists on them, include them in angle brackets (<>) after the entry and end with a period. For
long URLs, break lines only at slashes.

If you're citing an article or a publication that was originally issued in print form but that you
retrieved from an online database, you should type the online database name in italics. You do
not need to provide subscription information in addition to the database name.

Capitalization and Punctuation

Capitalize each word in the titles of articles, books, etc, but do not capitalize articles (the, an),
prepositions, or conjunctions unless one is the first word of the title or subtitle: Gone with the
Wind, The Art of War, There Is Nothing Left to Lose.

New to MLA 2009: Use italics (instead of underlining) for titles of larger works (books,
magazines) and quotation marks for titles of shorter works (poems, articles)

Listing Author Names

Entries are listed alphabetically by the author's last name (or, for entire edited collections, editor
names). Author names are written last name first; middle names or middle initials follow the first
name:
 Burke, Kenneth

Levy, David M.

Wallace, David Foster

Do not list titles (Dr., Sir, Saint, etc.) or degrees (PhD, MA, DDS, etc.) with names. A book
listing an author named "John Bigbrain, PhD" appears simply as "Bigbrain, John"; do, however,
include suffixes like "Jr." or "II." Putting it all together, a work by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
would be cited as "King, Martin Luther, Jr.," with the suffix following the first or middle name
and a comma.

More than One Work by an Author

If you have cited more than one work by a particular author, order the entries alphabetically by
title, and use three hyphens in place of the author's name for every entry after the first:

Burke, Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives. [...]

---. A Rhetoric of Motives. [...]

When an author or collection editor appears both as the sole author of a text and as the first
author of a group, list solo-author entries first:

Heller, Steven, ed. The Education of an E-Designer. Heller, Steven and Karen Pomeroy. Design

Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design.

Work with No Known Author

Alphabetize works with no known author by their title; use a shortened version of the title in the
parenthetical citations in your paper. In this case, Boring Postcards USA has no known author:

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulations. [...]

Boring Postcards USA. [...]

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. [...]

"Blueprint Lays Out Clear Path for Climate Action." Environmental Defense Fund. Environmental

Defense Fund, 8 May 2007. Web. 24 May 2009.

Clinton, Bill. Interview by Andrew C. Revkin. “Clinton on Climate Change.” New York Times. New

York Times, May 2007. Web. 25 May 2009.

Dean, Cornelia. "Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet." New York Times. New York Times, 22

May 2007. Web. 25 May 2009.

Ebert, Roger. "An Inconvenient Truth." Rev. of An Inconvenient Truth, dir. Davis Guggenheim.

rogerebert.com. Sun-Times News Group, 2 June 2006. Web. 24 May 2009.

GlobalWarming.org. Cooler Heads Coalition, 2007. Web. 24 May 2009.

Gowdy, John. "Avoiding Self-organized Extinction: Toward a Co-evolutionary Economics of

Sustainability." International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology 14.1

(2007): 27-36. Print.

An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Perf. Al Gore, Billy West. Paramount, 2006. DVD.

Leroux, Marcel. Global Warming: Myth Or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology. New York:

Springer, 2005. Print.

Milken, Michael, Gary Becker, Myron Scholes, and Daniel Kahneman. "On Global Warming and

Financial Imbalances." New Perspectives Quarterly 23.4 (2006): 63. Print.

Nordhaus, William D. "After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global Warming."

American Economic Review 96.2 (2006): 31-34. Print.

---. "Global Warming Economics." Science 9 Nov. 2001: 1283-84. Science Online. Web. 24 May

2009.
To create an annotated bibliography, simply add a summary of the source including its central claims,

content, or theme to each entry on the works cited page. Do not indent the text of the summary.