MLA Format Example: Paper, Works Cited, In-Text Citations

MLA format is a citation and document style developed by the Modern Language Association and used in literature, languages, cultural studies, philosophy, and most humanities classrooms in the United States, with current guidance based on the 9th edition of the MLA Handbook (2021). The format covers paper-level rules (margins, font, line spacing, headings, page numbers), in-text citations using author-page references in parentheses, and a Works Cited page that lists every source through a single nine-element template that handles books, journal articles, websites, films, social media posts, and emerging source types alike. EssayFount writing experts help high school, undergraduate, and graduate students apply MLA format correctly across literary analyses, history papers, philosophy essays, and any humanities assignment that requires the modern language association's citation system.

Written by Henry Whitfield, Lead Writing Expert (Humanities and Languages). Reviewed by Clara Bennett, Lead Writing Expert (Social Sciences and Business). Last reviewed 2026-04-24.

What MLA format covers

MLA format governs three layers of an academic paper, and a strong MLA submission gets all three right at once. Understanding what each layer asks for is the fastest way to stop losing points to formatting feedback.

• Paper-level format. Margins, font choice, line spacing, headings, header with page numbers, and the four-line first-page heading.
• In-text citations. The parenthetical (author page) format that appears whenever a source is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
• Works Cited page. The alphabetical list of every source cited, formatted to the nine-element MLA template introduced in the 8th edition and refined in the 9th.

Three rules apply across all three layers. First, MLA values consistency over creativity. Second, every in-text citation must match a Works Cited entry. Third, the 9th edition prefers practicality over decorative formatting; old habits like underlining titles, italicizing every Latin phrase, and forcing a separate title page are no longer required for most assignments.

MLA paper format

Margins, font, and spacing

• Margins: 1 inch on all four sides.
• Font: a readable typeface in size 11 or 12. Times New Roman 12-point is the most common; Arial 11-point is acceptable. Italic type must be visibly different from regular type.
• Line spacing: double-spaced throughout, including the Works Cited page. No extra blank lines between paragraphs, between Works Cited entries, or between the heading and the title.
• Paragraph indent: first line of every paragraph indented one half-inch (use the tab key, not five spaces).
• Alignment: left-aligned, ragged right edge. Do not justify text.

First-page heading and title

MLA papers do not require a separate title page unless the instructor requests one. The first page begins with a four-line heading flush with the left margin, followed by the centered title, followed by the body of the paper.

Sofia Reyes
Professor Whitfield
ENGL 230: American Literature
14 April 2026

Reading Silence in The Awakening

Kate Chopin's 1899 novel The Awakening uses silence as a structural element ...

Notice five details in the heading: the writer's full name on its own line, the instructor's name (with title), the course number and name on a single line, the date in day-month-year form spelled out (14 April 2026, not 04/14/2026), and the title centered with title case. The title is not bold, not italic, not underlined, and not in quotation marks unless those marks belong to a longer borrowed phrase.

Header and page numbers

Every page of an MLA paper, including the first, carries a header in the upper right corner one half-inch from the top of the page: the writer's last name followed by a space and the page number. No comma, no period, no abbreviation "p.", no styling. Use the word processor's header function rather than typing it manually so the numbering increments automatically.

Section headings (when needed)

Most MLA papers under 5,000 words run as continuous prose without internal headings. Longer papers can use numbered or labeled headings. The 9th edition allows up to five levels of heading; in practice, two or three are enough. Headings should be left-aligned, in title case, and visually distinguishable from body text by weight, italic, or numbering rather than by font change.

MLA in-text citation format

MLA uses parenthetical citations of the form (Author Page) with no comma between author and page. Place the citation directly after the borrowed material, before the closing punctuation of the sentence.

Standard examples

• One author, paraphrase: Chopin's protagonist refuses domestic confinement (Showalter 142).
• One author, direct quotation: The novel ends with "the soft, close embrace" of the sea (Chopin 175).
• Author named in the sentence: Showalter argues that the protagonist's refusal "rejects the entire genre of the domestic novel" (143). The author's name is not repeated in the parenthetical.
• Two authors: (Gilbert and Gubar 234).
• Three or more authors: (Smith et al. 89).
• No author given: use a shortened version of the title in italics (book) or in quotation marks (article): ("Reading Silence" 12).
• Multiple works by the same author: include a shortened title to disambiguate: (Chopin, Awakening 175); (Chopin, "Storm" 8).
• Source with no page numbers: use a paragraph number, section heading, or omit the location: (Brown, par. 4); (Brown).
• Multiple sources in one citation: separate with semicolons: (Showalter 142; Gilbert and Gubar 234).

Block quotations

Quotations longer than four lines of prose or three lines of verse are formatted as block quotations: indented one half-inch from the left margin, double-spaced, no quotation marks, with the parenthetical citation placed after the closing punctuation rather than before. Use block quotations sparingly; the 9th edition recommends them only when the exact wording of a long passage is necessary to the analysis.

MLA Works Cited page format

The Works Cited page is the centerpiece of MLA documentation. It begins on a new page after the body of the essay, carries the page header (last name and page number) like every other page, and titles the section Works Cited centered at the top with no bold, no underline, and no quotation marks.

Page-level rules

• Double-spaced, no extra spacing between entries.
• Hanging indent of one half-inch on every entry: the first line is flush left, every subsequent line is indented one half-inch.
• Entries are alphabetized by the first element of each entry, which is usually the author's last name. Entries with no author are alphabetized by the first significant word of the title.
• Multiple works by the same author: list the author's name on the first entry, then use three em dashes followed by a period (---.) for subsequent entries, alphabetized by title.

The MLA 9 nine-element template

The 9th edition organizes every Works Cited entry around nine elements, used in the same order regardless of source type. Elements you do not have for a given source are simply skipped.

1. Author. Last name, first name. Multiple authors: first author last-name-first, subsequent authors first-name-first.
2. Title of source. Italics for stand-alone works (books, films, websites, journals); quotation marks for works inside larger containers (articles, chapters, episodes).
3. Title of container. The larger work the source is part of, in italics.
4. Other contributors. Translators, editors, directors, performers, narrators, with role labels.
5. Version. Edition number, version number, or edition descriptor (revised edition, director's cut).
6. Number. Volume and issue numbers for journals; season and episode numbers for streaming media.
7. Publisher. The organization that produced the source.
8. Publication date. Year for books; day-month-year for periodicals and web sources.
9. Location. Page range for print sources; URL or DOI for web sources.

Works Cited examples by source type

The examples below show common entries assembled from the nine-element template. Each ends with a period.

Print book, single author

Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing. Princeton UP, 1977.

Print book, multiple authors

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. 2nd ed., Yale UP, 2000.

Edited book chapter

Hooks, Bell. "Postmodern Blackness." Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, edited by Stephen Trachtenberg, South End Press, 1990, pp. 23-31.

Journal article (with DOI)

Reynolds, James. "Silence and Resistance in Late-Nineteenth-Century American Fiction." American Literary History, vol. 27, no. 3, 2015, pp. 567-89. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1093/alh/ajv041.

Magazine or news article (online)

Schultz, Kathryn. "What Is Owed." The New Yorker, 14 June 2021, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/14/what-is-owed.

Website page (no print version)

"Reading the Letters of Frederick Douglass." Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, 12 Mar. 2024, nmaahc.si.edu/learn/students/spotlight-topics/douglass-letters.

Film

Moonlight. Directed by Barry Jenkins, performances by Trevante Rhodes, Andre Holland, and Janelle Monae, A24, 2016.

YouTube video

Crash Course. "The American Revolution: Crash Course US History #7." YouTube, 7 Mar. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlUiSBXQHCw.

Social media post

@nasa. "Webb sees the early universe in unprecedented detail." X, 23 Aug. 2025, x.com/nasa/status/1834567890123.

Government document

United States, Congress, House. Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2024. Government Publishing Office, 2024. 118th Congress, 2nd session, House Resolution 14.

Sample MLA paper opening

The excerpt below shows the first page of a sample MLA paper, including the heading, title, and opening paragraph. The full paper would continue across five to twelve pages with body paragraphs, in-text citations, and a Works Cited page.

Reyes 1

Sofia Reyes
Professor Whitfield
ENGL 230: American Literature
14 April 2026

Reading Silence in The Awakening

Kate Chopin's 1899 novel The Awakening uses silence as a structural element rather than as the absence of speech. From the opening scene, in which the protagonist Edna Pontellier listens rather than speaks, to the final paragraphs in which the sea takes the place of any human voice, silence carries narrative weight on its own. Critics from the period dismissed the novel as morally indecisive; later feminist criticism reread the same silences as a form of refusal, arguing that the novel rejects the speech protocols of the domestic novel itself (Showalter 142). The case for reading the silences as refusal becomes most persuasive when paired with the novel's careful patterning of music, sea sound, and human conversation, which together suggest that Edna's quiet is not a failure to articulate but a chosen response to a world that will not hear her.

How to write an MLA paper step by step

1. Set the document. Set 1-inch margins, double spacing, a readable 11- or 12-point font, and a header showing your last name and the page number.
2. Type the four-line heading. Your name, instructor's name, course, and date in day-month-year form on four lines flush left.
3. Center the title in title case. No bold, italic, or underline. Italicize the names of books, films, or albums inside the title; use quotation marks around poems, short stories, and songs inside the title.
4. Indent every paragraph. Use the tab key for a one-half-inch indent.
5. Cite as you write. Add parenthetical citations for every quoted, paraphrased, or summarized source the moment you use it.
6. Build the Works Cited as you draft. Add a corresponding Works Cited entry for every in-text citation immediately. Backfilling at the end is the single largest cause of MLA citation errors.
7. Apply hanging indents. Use the paragraph dialog hanging-indent setting on the Works Cited page rather than tabbing manually.
8. Alphabetize the Works Cited. By author last name, or by first significant word of the title for sources with no author.
9. Cross-check. Every in-text citation must have a matching Works Cited entry, and every Works Cited entry must be cited at least once in the paper.
10. Run a format pass. Confirm margins, spacing, font consistency, page numbers, and that the title is not bold or italic.

Common MLA format mistakes

• Bolding or italicizing the paper title. The 9th edition wants the title in plain type, centered, in title case.
• Using a separate title page when one is not required. Most MLA assignments do not require a title page. Adding one without instructor request can cost points for non-compliance with style.
• Wrong date format. MLA expects 14 April 2026, not April 14, 2026 and not 04/14/2026.
• Forgetting page numbers in citations. Parenthetical citations require a page number for any printed source that has one. (Showalter) is incomplete; (Showalter 142) is correct.
• Adding a comma between author and page. MLA does not. (Showalter, 142) is wrong; (Showalter 142) is right.
• No hanging indents on the Works Cited page. Each entry needs the first line flush left and subsequent lines indented one half-inch.
• Quoting too long without using block format. Direct quotations longer than four lines of prose must be block-indented.
• Mixing italics and underlines. The 9th edition uses italics for stand-alone titles. Underlining is a typewriter-era convention and should not appear.
• Inconsistent author name format. Multiple authors: only the first author's name is reversed (Last, First). Subsequent authors are listed First Last.
• URL formatting errors. Drop "https://" only if the instructor's style guide allows it; the 9th edition prefers full URLs without the protocol but the practice varies.
• Missing access dates for online sources that change. MLA 9 makes access dates optional for stable web sources but still recommends them for content that may be revised, such as wiki pages.
• Stapling in the wrong place. A small detail, but instructors do notice. The header is in the upper right; the staple goes in the upper left.

How EssayFount supports MLA format

MLA format trips up otherwise strong humanities writers because the rules cross three layers (paper format, in-text citations, Works Cited) and update across editions. EssayFount writing experts help students apply current 9th edition rules in literary analyses, history essays, philosophy seminars, and creative-writing portfolios. We work with high school, undergraduate, and graduate writers on document setup, parenthetical citation accuracy, Works Cited construction across every common source type, and end-to-end format audits before submission. Our editors flag mismatches between in-text citations and Works Cited entries, fix hanging indents, normalize date formats, and confirm that titles are styled correctly throughout the paper.