Many instructors require students to set up their paper a certain way. Often they require MLA format. For some reason, students seem to have a lot of trouble with this, but it’s not really that difficult. Within MLA format, there are really three parts: page format, parenthetical documentation, and the Works Cited page, which are explained (breifly) here.
Keep in mind that some instructors say they want MLA format and then give other formatting guidelines, so just be sure that you are doing what your instructor is expecting.
Page Format
All of the pages should look the same except your first page and your Works Cited page.
§ The top of the first page of your paper should look like this:
First and Last Name
Instructors Name
Course Name
Date in 22 June 2007 format
§ The title of your paper should be centered, with capital letters at the beginning of important words, like this: Jazz Singers in the United States.
§ One inch margins all around the page. You set the margins by using the page layout feature. If you can’t find it on your word processing program, type “margins” into the help feature. It should tell you where you can change this.
§ 12 point font (usually Arial or Times New Roman. Don’t use something like Curlz or the really cool new Harry Potter font because your instructor probably won’t appreciate it as much as you.)
§ The whole paper should be double spaced, including your name and the title and that stuff. To change this, you can go to Paragraph settings. Either change this up before you start typing, or once you are finished, because Microsoft sometimes forgets what you mean and then your paper is partially double spaced, and partially single spaced.
§ There should be a header at the top of each page. It will have your last name and page number (both right aligned). For the old Microsoft Word, you can locate the header by going to “View” on Microsoft word and clicking on header. A little menu bar pops up and the # button with insert the page number on each page. For the newest version, you can just double click at the top of the page and it will let you type the header there, and there is also a menu with a # button that will put the page number on each page.
§ Titles should be underlined or italicized, but be consistent with whichever method you use.
Parenthetical Documentation
The purpose of parenthetical documentation is to let your reader know that the fact you just put in your paper came from somewhere else. You’re telling them where that “somewhere else” is by putting a reference to your works cited page, where they can go look up the info. Each parenthetical you have should refer to an entry on your works cited page.
§ You put the parenthesis after the information that you took, but before the punctuation at the end (usually a period.) It would look like:
Mountain lions eat cell phone batteries, discarded computer chips, and spaghetti in the wild (Burns 18).
§ If you use a direct quote, you put the parenthetical after the quotation marks, but before the punctuation. Like this:
Dr. Chris Burns, a mountain lion expert says that mountain lions “don’t pose a danger to the orange juice industry” (Burns 26).
§ The word that you put in the parenthesis is the first word that appears in your works cited, with all necessary formatting. This is usually an authors last name, the first word of a title (except The, A, or other articles). Remember, if in the works cited it is underline or in quotation marks, it should be like that in the parenthetical documentation as well. For example:
Most female mountain lions prefer males who listen to Opera music (Mountain 22).
§ If it is a print source (or a PDF file you printed from the Internet) you should have the page number that the information appeared on. You don’t need to put page or pp. or anything like that before it.
§ If it is an Internet source with numbered paragraphs, you should put the paragraph numbers instead, and put pars. like this: (“Where” pars. 29-31). You can use page numbers for internet sources only if the pagination is the same for everyone that can view the document. Most of the time, this isn't the case, so internet sources don't have page numbers with them.
Works Cited
§ This should be a separate page at the end, but should still be part of your document. In Microsoft Word, you can go to “Insert” and select “Break” and if you click “page break” it will make a new page for you. (Be sure you are at the end of your document before you do this!)
§ There should be one entry on your works cited for each book, journal article, website, or other source you used. And also, don't just stick extra ones in here to fulfill the requirements if they aren't in your paper, because instructors usually check this.
§ Just put Works Cited, centered and at the top, without any weird formatting.
§The works cited should have a hanging indent of .5 inches so it's easy to see where one entry starts and another begins. To set this, go to the "paragraph" menu. Somewhere it should say “special” and on that menu should be “hanging”. Select that, and it should automatically set it to .5” hanging indent. If it is set to some other number, you will have to change it.
§ Each entry should be listed alphabetically, not paying attention to articles at the beginning, such as The, or A.
§ Each entry should be set up according to MLA format. There are different ways to set up different kinds of sources. The Purdue Online Writing Lab has accurate, easy to read, information on the following sources:
o Books
o Other Non-Print Sources