MLA Style (8^th Edition)

When do I use MLA?

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is generally used for literary scholarship and academic papers written for the humanities. 

What's included in an MLA style paper?

First Page

Type your first and last name, your instructor’s name, the course, and the date in the upper left-hand corner of your first page. On the next line, center your title without any extra spaces.

Main Body Format

• 12 pt, Times New Roman font
• Double-spaced with no additional spaces between sections or paragraphs
• Header with last name and page number in upper right-hand corner (including on page 1)
• 1-inch margins a.k.a. “Normal”

Works Cited

The Works Cited page lists all sources cited within the paper. The title is “Works Cited” and is centered at the top. The sources that you want to cite are double-spaced, flush left with a 0.5” hanging indent, and alphabetized according to authors’ last names. When no Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is available for online sources, use the URL instead.

Book:
Healy, Sally. The Purple Dinosaur. MacMurray, 2013.

Article in a scholarly journal:
Atkinson, Brandon and Joe Madsen. “A New Take on Dinosaurs.” Archaeology Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, 2014, pp. 60-73, doi: 10.9874/234857298473984.

Magazine article:
Buckner, Dan. "A Special Makeover." Good Housekeeping, Mar. 2016, pp. 140-45.

Website:
Robertson, Mable. Stamps. 2008, superstamps.com. Accessed 14 May 2016.

Section or page on a website:
Wallace, Mary. “Deconstructing a Feminist Text.” Literary and Critical Theory. Harvard U, 28 Nov. 2009, www.cla.harvard.edu/english/theory/. Accessed 10 Mar. 2017.

In-Text Citations

MLA citations include the last name of the author and the page number where the quote or information exists – unless the author’s name was used when introducing the quote.

Examples of Introducing Citations

Professor Diane Murphy, author of “Video Game Culture,” argues, “Most people do not recognize the racist representations of non-white male characters in online role-playing games” (167). But it is only through careful study of these games, she writes, that we can “see how racism is perpetuated subconsciously through media and entertainment” (168). The trolls in World of Warcraft illustrate this point perfectly (Anderson 89-92).