MLA Paper Format

Function of MLA Format

• The formal, standard way to present your work when studying languages and humanities at university.
• Make it look tidy–get some ‘street cred’ (credentials) as a good student

Text Part

• Top right-hand corner ‘header’, surname and page number (Li 1; Li 2; Li3) (OR you can write your English name and page number if you prefer) .
• Front size 12 throughout the paper .
• " Times new roman " – a sytle of word.

• Double-line space the whole essay.

• Leave only one space after periods/full stops or other punctuation marks.

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

• Indent the first line of each paragraph one half-inch from the left margin. MLA recommends that you use the “Tab” key as opposed to pushing the space bar five times.

• Use italics throughout your essay to indicate the titles of longer works and only when absolutely necessary, provide emphasis.
  

Simple Way to Capitalise Titles

• Capitalize the first word and all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives.

• Lowercase all articles, prepositions, and certain conjunctions.

• The first word is always capitalised like ‘The Death of the Moth’ (short essay) and ‘A Room with a View’ (novel)

• each first letter begins with a capital letter except the preposition word (and articles).