MLA is one of the most common formats used in humanities studies in English. It requires certain rules of citation. It may be used in articles for university, in some scientific papers, or many other academic works. In this way, it’s easy for readers to understand the text and check the sources if they want to.
MLA formatting requirements
If you need to write a text using MLA, meet the requirements below:
- The wide of all the margins should be 2.5 cm (1 inch). To set such a value, find the Page Layout preferences in the File menu of any text editor. Press the “Margins” button and set the width that you need.
- Use double line spacing throughout all the work. Don’t use any extra spacing between paragraphs. To set double line spacing, return to the Page Layout preferences like in the previous point, and press “Indents and spacing”. Set 2.0 to select double spacing.
- All the text should be in Times New Roman font. Usually, the optimal size is 12. However, you may use other fonts – the main requirement of it is to be readable and understandable. Don’t use a font that causes any difficulties to read.
- Each page must contain the header on the top in the right corner. The header includes the last name of an author and a current number of a page. Click on the View or Insert menu to set the header and footer.
Example of a structure of paper in MLA
- Name, the last name of an author
- Class or group
- The last name of a professor
- Date
- The title of a paper
- Text
The citations must be provided in two variants:
- In-text. The last name of an author the source must be mentioned in parenthesis after the citation.
- In the list of the sources. Detailed information about the source including author’s name and last name, the title of a cited work, and so forth.
