MLA is the Modern Language Association style guide used for formatting college papers. It covers how papers should be presented, including using one-inch margins, double spacing, and Times New Roman 12-point font. Papers must include a header on each page with the author's last name and page number. The first page heading should include the author's name, course name, instructor's name, and due date. Subsequent pages only need the header. Formatting shows respect for academic writing standards.

1. Formatting Essays

2. MLA stands for “Modern Language
Association”
The MLA is a huge organization made up of
teachers and scholars of many languages
and their literature, including English. They
meet once a year to share ideas, and one of
the regular projects is to update the MLA
style guide and citation manual.

3. It is expected throughout the U.S. that college
English papers will follow MLA standards.
This includes citing material from sources
according to MLA guidelines, but MLA
standards also cover the way that an essay is
presented.
We will talk in the next few classes about several related
topics:
• MLA formatting requirements
• MLA in-text citations
• MLA Works Cited pages

4. And while correct citations are
essential, formatting also matters!!
While the quality of what you have to say and
how you say it is more important than how it
looks, meeting the formatting guidelines
shows respect for the discipline and for your
own work: it shows that you know the rules to
participate in college-level writing.
You can format your paper as you type it, or do
all of this after the paper is written.

5. All of the actual essays that you write for
this class will be submitted electronically.
So you might think that formatting won’t matter.
However, MLA formatting is the standard not
for the hell of it, but for reasons of readability:
having space on a page gives me room to
mark and comment, and is kinder to my eyes
as well.
And again, it is a gesture that shows that you
know the standards, that you can meet the
standards, and that you are a participant in
the giant community of People Who Write

6. So, simply put, here are the rules:
• No title page, folder, or cover. Multiple pages must be stapled, not folded
or paper-clipped.
• Pages should have standard one-inch margins, and each page should
have your last name and the page number in the header.
• Papers should be typed in 12-point Times New Roman (or similar) font,
• and be double-spaced throughout, from the first line of the heading through
the last line of the Works Cited page, with no extra spaces anywhere in the
paper.
• The heading, on the top left-hand side of the first page, should be your
name, the course name or number and section number, my name, and the
due date for the essay.
• You should provide your own title for each paper; your own title is not
italicized, underlined, bolded, or placed in quotation marks.
• You must provide a (computer-generated) word count at the end of the
paper (before the Works Cited page).
• Essays with outside sources will require that you use MLA-style citation
and provide an MLA Works Cited page.
GOT THAT?

7. No title page, folder, or cover. Multiple pages
must be stapled, not folded or paper-clipped.
This will not be an issue with the electronic
submissions, but this will be true of some
assignments, and will also be true for other
classes.
This makes sense; if your instructor is carrying
a stack of papers and drops them, stapled
pages have a better chance of staying
attached, and the last thing you want is to be
penalized for missing pages of a paper. A
stapler is really a sound investment.

8. This will cover how to format using
MS Word 2010.
Different programs will look different, but all still
have the capacity to do these things. There
is always a “Help” option in the program itself,
so you can look up the how-to if you’re at a
loss.

9. Pages should have standard one-inch
margins...
Some older versions of MS Word
default to a different margin
width. You’ll want to check
and make sure about the
computer that you’re using to
format your work.
A reason for margins, besides
leaving room for comments, is
that printers usually require a
certain amount of blank space
at the edges.

10. ...and each page should have your last name
and the page number in the header.
The header is accessed through the “Insert” tab:

11. … and you can add your name and have the program insert the correct
page numbers. You should “tab” over to the right margin or right-justify
the header text.

12. Papers should be typed in 12-point
Times New Roman font...
The “Times” in the name is a London newspaper, and the font was developed in 1931
in response to complaints about the newspaper’s lack of readability. The font size
is, again, a standard for readability of text-based publication.
That is TNR font.
This is not.

13. ...and be double-spaced throughout, from the first line of
the heading through the last line of the Works Cited page,
with no extra spaces anywhere in the paper.
So either set the computer to double-spacing (this is not the default setting)
before you type anything or change the spacing of the whole text when
you’re done. MS Word also has a default setting that adds extra spaces
between paragraphs. Turn this off!

14. The First Page of Your Essay
The heading, on the top left-hand side of the first page, should be your name,
the course name or number and section number, my name, and the due
date for the essay.
There is no page number required on the first page: the heading and title make
it clear that it is the first page of the paper.

15. The Title
You should provide your own title for each paper; your own title is not italicized,
underlined, bolded, or placed in quotation marks. It should be centered and
follow standard American English-language rules for titles, that is, with all
words capitalized except for articles, conjunctions, and prepositions (i.e.,
really small words).
There are NO extra spaces around the title; just keep the double-spacing on.

16. Writing Assignments will have a required
word count rather than number of pages.
You must provide a (computer-
generated) word count at the end
of the paper (before the Works
Cited page). While the computer
will count for you, you will need to
type the number it provides.
The Word Count feature is accessed
via the “Review” tab. If you
*really* want to be accurate, you
can highlight only the actual
essay, not the header or title, and
then click Word Count. While this
is not essential, you should
NEVER include the Works Cited
page in your word count.
Word counts used to be done by hand, and all
proper nouns were counted as one word,
while articles (a/an/the) were not counted at
all. Now that we let computers count for us,
every set of letters between spaces gets
counted as one word. Therefore, if a
maximum word limit is given, standard
practice is to allow for 10% overage.

17. So your paper should look like this in a
word-processing program.
Essays with outside sources will require MLA-style in-text citations and Works

18. And then, to be sure it is submitted exactly as
you prepared it, you should save it as a PDF.
A PDF is essentially a photograph of the screen. You will be submitting the
PDF to my Dropbox.