sample mla style research paper

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MLA Sample Paper

Mla sample paper #1.

If you’ve been wondering how to produce a research paper that is strong in both formatting and writing, you’ve come to the right place.

Check out our first sample paper below. It is a helpful and clearly labeled visual aid to refer to. Note that while these sample papers do not include MLA abstracts , you should check with your instructor to see if an abstract should be included.

Visual Sample Paper

The example research paper below is one that was written in college for a course on the Inklings. The Inklings were a group of writers in England before WWII, including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The abbreviated MLA paper below (linked here without annotations) is about J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and how the author used myth, story, and song to link all of his works together. Tolkien is famous for creating a fantasy universe called Middle-earth, which readers can’t truly understand until they read all of the books about Middle-earth ( The Silmarillian, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings ).

Since we’re here to learn how to format an essay, we’ve pointed out some important things about the paper to help you write a correctly formatted essay.

For starters, the essay is in MLA format. That means it follows the style manual of the Modern Language Association, which tells you how to format the paper itself and every source you cite. You’ll also see notes like how long a paragraph should be, how to use commas properly, and how to correctly punctuate a title. Some of these guidelines are different from those in APA format , so be sure to confirm you are using the correct style in your paper.

Pay special attention to the MLA format works cited. We only used one type of source (books), but both citations are correct according to the 9th edition of MLA, published in 2021. When you’re writing your own paper, you need to make sure you always use the most recent edition of the style manual. You’ll also want to check with your instructor to see if you need to include an MLA annotated bibliography with your paper, which contains additional information summarizing and evaluating each source after the regular citation.

Whether you need MLA, APA citations , or Chicago style notes, look up the latest edition before turning in a paper.

MLA Sample Paper #2

See below for an example paper or click below to download it as a Word Document.

The MLA header should be one inch from the top and left margins. The heading and the entire paper should be double spaced.

Eli YaffarabeProfessor Rapheor

28 August 2018

Privatization of Prisons in Texas

              The privatization of governmental services has increased dramatically in the past decade as local, state, and federal agencies have searched for ways to cut costs while still meeting their mandated responsibility to provide various public services. This privatizing trend has particularly affected the criminal justice system. Since the early 1990s, privatized correctional facilities have increased significantly, nationally and statewide. This policy has far-ranging consequences not only within the criminal justice system, but as an instructive example for government officials when considering the costs and benefits of privatization as a public policy option. By 2001, thirty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico had privately-operated correctional facilities (Austin and Coventry 4). This movement has incited considerable debate and controversy, mainly because prison privatization calls for giving the private sector direct control over the lives of a captive human population.

Surprisingly, there has been little objective and concrete analysis of the privatization of prisons in the United States. This is probably for two reasons: first, ideological arguments on the matter have pushed out substantive research, and second, because this trend has only recently accelerated in the U.S. and mainly on a state level. However, case studies and statistics at the state level are more accessible. With capacity for over 30,000 prisoners in 43 facilities, the state of Texas has privatized more of its prison system than any state in the nation (McDonald and Patten Jr. iv).

Yaffarabe 2

              Public policy concerning the criminal justice system has become more daunting and important in the last decade. The problems in the system are twofold: an overcrowding prison population, mainly due to “three strikes” legislation and reducing early parole; and the costs of operating prisons with this growing population (Austin and Coventry). According to the most recent U.S. Department of Justice survey, slightly over 2.2 million people were incarcerated in correctional facilities in this country in 2003. In comparison, in 1993, 1.37 million people were imprisoned in this country (Beck and Harrison 1).

At the same time, the growth of privately operated correctional facilities has increased significantly in this country. Private prisons now hold 95,522 inmates in this country, which is 6.5 percent of total prisoners (Beck and Harrison 5). In Texas, 16,570 inmates (10 percent of its prison population) are held in private facilities, about 10,000 more than the next highest state. Furthermore, six states had at least 25 percent of their prison population housed in private prisons, led by New Mexico (44%), Alaska (31%), and Montana (29%). These current statistics show that while state governments have been forced to manage and operate overcrowded and over-capacity prisons at considerable costs, many have turned to the private sector to operate prisons (McDonald and Patten Jr.). According to the General Accounting Office, prison operating costs have grown steadily since 1980, increasing almost 550 percent since 1980 based on inflation-adjusted dollars (Austin and Coventry 1).

Prison privatization started in the early 1980s, ostensibly to ease the burden on taxpayers by offering financial relief to private companies to run state prisons. Thomas Beasley founded Corrections Corporation of America in 1983, “the nation’s leader in the construction and management of private prisons” (Darling). That year, Corrections Corporation of America set up the first privately-operated prison in Tennessee. Since then, the number of private

Yaffarabe 3

correctional facility firms has grown to 14 (Austin and Coventry 3). The privatization of prisons occurs in two ways. First, state government can contract out (or outsource) specific services in a correctional facility to a private company after a bidding process. Second, and more radically, private companies build their own privately-managed prisons and contract with state governments to house their inmates. This latter approach, giving private correctional facility firms wide latitude over inmates, is taken in the Texas criminal justice system. In fact, many of these privately operated facilities “have no relationship at all with the state governments in these states, other than an obligation to pay corporate income taxes” (McDonald and Patten Jr. v).

(Due to its length, the remainder of this sample paper is omitted).

Yaffarabe 4

Works Cited Page

Austin, James, and Garry Coventry. Emerging Issues on Privatized Prisons . Bureau of Justice Assistance, Feb. 2001, www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bja/181249.pdf.

Beck, Allen J., and Paige Harrison. Prisoners in 2003 . Bureau of Justice Statistics, Nov. 2004, www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p03.pdf.

McDonald, Douglas, and Carl Patten Jr. Governments’ Management of Private Prisons . Abt Associates, 15 Sept. 2003, www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/203968.pdf.

Darling, Michael. “Pitt News: University of Pittsburgh Shouldn’t Lend Its Name to Prison Privatization.” CorpWatch , 15 Nov. 2004, corpwatch.org/article/pitt-news-univeristy-pittsburgh-shouldnt-lend-its-name-prison-privatization.

MLA Formatting Guide

MLA Formatting

• Annotated Bibliography
• Bibliography
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• et al Usage
• In-text Citations
• Paraphrasing
• Page Numbers
• Sample Paper
• Works Cited
• MLA 8 Updates
• MLA 9 Updates
• View MLA Guide

Citation Examples

• Book Chapter
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
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• Website (no author)
• View all MLA Examples

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An in-text citation is a short citation that is placed next to the text being cited. The basic element needed for an in-text citation is the author’s name . The publication year is not required in in-text citations. Sometimes, page numbers or line numbers are also included, especially when text is quoted from the source being cited. In-text citations are mentioned in the text in two ways: as a citation in prose or a parenthetical citation.

Citation in prose

Citations in prose are incorporated into the text and act as a part of the sentence. Usually, citations in prose use the author’s full name when cited the first time in the text. Thereafter, only the surname is used. Avoid including the middle initial even if it is present in the works-cited-list entry. An example of the first citation in prose for a source with one author is given below:

Doug Barry explains the status of the UK.

Parenthetical

Parenthetical citations add only the author’s surname at the end of the sentence in parentheses. An example of a parenthetical citation is given below:

The status of the UK is explained (Barry).

Examples of in-text citations

Here are a few examples of in-text citations for works with various numbers and types of authors:

Use both the first name and surname of the author if you are mentioning the author for the first time in the prose. In subsequent occurrences, use only the author’s surname. Always use only the author’s surname in parenthetical citations.

Citation in prose:

First mention: Stephen George asserts …. (17).

Subsequent occurrences: George argues …. (17).

Parenthetical:

…. (George 17).

Two authors

Use the first name and surname of both authors if you are mentioning the work for the first time in the prose. In subsequent occurrences, use only the surnames of the two authors. Always use only the authors’ surnames in parenthetical citations. Use “and” to separate the two authors in parenthetical citations.

First mention: Kane Williams and Clark Ronald ….

Subsequent occurrences: Williams and Ronald ….

…. (Williams and Ronald).

Three or more authors

For citations in prose, use the first name and surname of the first author followed by “and others” or “and colleagues.” For parenthetical citations, use only the surname of the first author followed by “et al.”

Krishnan Sethu and colleagues…. or Krishnan Sethu and others ….

…. (Sethu et al.).

Corporate author

For citations in prose, treat the corporate author like you would treat the author’s name. For parenthetical citations, shorten the organization name to the shortest noun phrase. For example, shorten the Modern Language Association of America to Modern Language Association.

The Language Literary Association of Canada….

…. (Language Literary Association).

If there is no author for the source, use the source’s title in place of the author’s name for both citations in prose and parenthetical citations.

When you add such in-text citations, italicize the text of the title. If the source title is longer than a noun phrase, use a shortened version of the title. For example, shorten the title Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to Fantastic Beasts .

Endgame explains …. (121).

…. ( Endgame 121).

In MLA style, two types of citations are used to cite a source: a short citation used within the text (called the in-text citation) and a full citation (called the works cited list entry) within the works cited list, which appears at the end of a paper.

The works cited list entry provides the complete details of a source. An in-text citation is a short citation that is placed next to the text being cited. The in-text citation lets the reader know that the information is derived from the cited source, and helps the reader find the full citation within the works cited list.

In order to properly cite a source in MLA style, you must have both citation types in your paper. Every in-text citation has a works cited list entry. Every works cited list entry has at least one (maybe more) corresponding in-text citation.

In-text citations

The basic element needed for an in-text citation is the author’s surname . The publication year is not required in in-text citations. Sometimes, page numbers or line numbers are also included, especially when text is quoted from the source being cited.

First mention: Sian Anderson studies ….

Subsequent occurrences: Anderson analyzes ….

….(Anderson)

or if quoting directly:

…(Anderson 9)

First mention: Paul Fin and Anna Gabriel ….

Subsequent occurrences: Fin and Gabriel ….

….(Fin and Gabriel)

…(Fin and Gabriel 27)

Paul Hill and colleagues…. or Paul Hill and others ….

….(Hill et al.)

…(Hill et al. 138)

Examples of works cited list entries

Below are a few examples of different types of works cited list entries. The examples given are for one author.

Steinman, Louise. The Knowing Body: Elements of Contemporary Performance and Dance . Shambhala Publications, 1986.

Journal article                                      

Barad, K. “Nature’s Queer Performativity.” Qui Parle , vol. 19, no. 2, 2011, pp. 121–58.

Webpage of a website

Midgelow, Vida L. “Experiences and Perceptions of the Artistic Doctorate: A Survey Report.” Artistic Doctorates in Europe,  5 Feb. 2018, www.artisticdoctorates.com/2017/12/28/experiences-and-perceptions-of-the-artistic-doctorate-survey-report/ .

YouTube video

“Behind the Scenes Chili’s Baby Back Ribs Spot.” YouTube , uploaded by Alvin Chea, 11 Sept. 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTDLh7gNRYA .

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• MLA format for academic papers and essays

MLA Format | Complete Guidelines & Free Template

Published on December 11, 2019 by Raimo Streefkerk . Revised on May 6, 2024 by Jack Caulfield.

The MLA Handbook provides guidelines for creating MLA citations and formatting academic papers. This includes advice on structuring parenthetical citations, the Works Cited page, and tables and figures. This quick guide will help you set up your MLA format paper in no time.

Cite your MLA source

Start by applying these MLA format guidelines to your document:

• Use an easily readable font like 12 pt Times New Roman
• Set 1 inch page margins
• Use double line spacing
• Include a ½” indent for new paragraphs
• Include a four-line MLA heading on the first page
• Center the paper’s title
• Use title case capitalization for headings
• Cite your sources with MLA in-text citations
• List all sources cited on a Works Cited page at the end

Alternatively, you can automatically apply the formatting with our MLA docx or Google Docs template.

Table of contents

How to set up mla format in google docs, header and title, running head, works cited page, creating mla style citations, headings and subheadings, tables and figures, frequently asked questions about mla format.

The header in MLA format is left-aligned on the first page of your paper. It includes

• Your full name
• Your instructor’s or supervisor’s name
• The course name or number
• The due date of the assignment

After the MLA header, press ENTER once and type your paper title. Center the title and don’t forget to apply title-case capitalization. Read our article on writing strong titles that are informative, striking and appropriate.

For a paper with multiple authors, it’s better to use a separate title page instead.

At the top of every page, including the first page, you need to include your last name and the page number. This is called the “running head.” Follow these steps to set up the MLA running head in your Word or Google Docs document:

• Double-click at the top of a page
• Type your last name
• Insert automatic page numbering
• Align the content to the right

The running head should look like this:

The Works Cited list is included on a separate page at the end of your paper. You list all the sources you referenced in your paper in alphabetical order. Don’t include sources that weren’t cited in the paper, except potentially in an MLA annotated bibliography assignment.

Place the title “Works Cited” in the center at the top of the page. After the title, press ENTER once and insert your MLA references.

If a reference entry is longer than one line, each line after the first should be indented ½ inch (called a hanging indent ). All entries are double spaced, just like the rest of the text.

Generate accurate MLA citations with Scribbr

Prefer to cite your sources manually? Use the interactive example below to see what the Works Cited entry and MLA in-text citation look like for different source types.

Headings and subheadings are not mandatory, but they can help you organize and structure your paper, especially in longer assignments.

MLA has only a few formatting requirements for headings. They should

• Be written in title case
• Be left-aligned
• Not end in a period

We recommend keeping the font and size the same as the body text and applying title case capitalization. In general, boldface indicates greater prominence, while italics are appropriate for subordinate headings.

Chapter Title

Section Heading

Tip: Both Google Docs and Microsoft Word allow you to create heading levels that help you to keep your headings consistent.

Tables and other illustrations (referred to as “figures”) should be placed as close to the relevant part of text as possible. MLA also provides guidelines for presenting them.

MLA format for tables

Tables are labeled and numbered, along with a descriptive title. The label and title are placed above the table on separate lines; the label and number appear in bold.

A caption providing information about the source appears below the table; you don’t need one if the table is your own work.

Below this, any explanatory notes appear, marked on the relevant part of the table with a superscript letter. The first line of each note is indented; your word processor should apply this formatting automatically.

Just like in the rest of the paper, the text is double spaced and you should use title case capitalization for the title (but not for the caption or notes).

MLA format for figures

Figures (any image included in your paper that isn’t a table) are also labeled and numbered, but here, this is integrated into the caption below the image. The caption in this case is also centered.

The label “Figure” is abbreviated to “Fig.” and followed by the figure number and a period. The rest of the caption gives either full source information, or (as in the example here) just basic descriptive information about the image (author, title, publication year).

Source information in table and figure captions

If the caption of your table or figure includes full source information and that source is not otherwise cited in the text, you don’t need to include it in your Works Cited list.

Give full source information in a caption in the same format as you would in the Works Cited list, but without inverting the author name (i.e. John Smith, not Smith, John).

MLA recommends using 12-point Times New Roman , since it’s easy to read and installed on every computer. Other standard fonts such as Arial or Georgia are also acceptable. If in doubt, check with your supervisor which font you should be using.

The main guidelines for formatting a paper in MLA style are as follows:

• Apply double line spacing
• Indent every new paragraph ½ inch

The fastest and most accurate way to create MLA citations is by using Scribbr’s MLA Citation Generator .

Search by book title, page URL, or journal DOI to automatically generate flawless citations, or cite manually using the simple citation forms.

The MLA Handbook is currently in its 9th edition , published in 2021.

This quick guide to MLA style  explains the latest guidelines for citing sources and formatting papers according to MLA.

Usually, no title page is needed in an MLA paper . A header is generally included at the top of the first page instead. The exceptions are when:

• Your instructor requires one, or
• Your paper is a group project

In those cases, you should use a title page instead of a header, listing the same information but on a separate page.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Streefkerk, R. (2024, May 06). MLA Format | Complete Guidelines & Free Template. Scribbr. Retrieved August 12, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/mla/formatting/

Is this article helpful?

Raimo Streefkerk

Other students also liked, creating an mla header, block quoting in mla style, how to format your mla works cited page, what is your plagiarism score.

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Sample papers

• MLA 9th edition sample papers The SCC Library & Academic Support Center teach students to follow 9th edition student formatting rules, unless the instructor states otherwise.

Paper Template

• Student Paper Template, MLA 9 (PDF) Download this template before you begin writing to make sure your paper is formatted correctly in MLA 9th edition format.
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You are going to love this! Save this template somewhere safe or e-mail it to yourself. Then resave it immediately with the name of your new document. This will keep your template safe and ready to reuse again for future assignments.

This template will be sufficient for most student MLA papers. For more information on formatting your paper, consult the official MLA Style website:  https://mlahandbookplus.org/books/book/5/chapter/56247/Introduction-to-Formatting-Your-Research-Project  or pages 1-14 in the MLA Manual. 

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MLA Citation Guide

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MLA Sample Paper

Mla sample student research paper.

The following sample is provided to guide you with formatting your MLA Style research paper. The sample provides in-text citations, thesis statement, MLA format, and a Works Cited page.

• MLA Student Sample

MLA Style Examples

To view more MLA Style research papers written by students visit MLA Style Center .

MLA Research Paper

In this video, we will note the major elements of an MLA Style Research paper. The video will cover, font, font size, margins, and spacing elements found in MLA research papers.

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Sample Paper Formatted in MLA Style from OWL Purdue

• Sample MLA Paper Below is a sample paper from OWL Purdue formatted to MLA Standards

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Paper Format

• Formatting a Research Paper (MLA)
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Sample Papers

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General Formatting (MLA 1.1, 1.2)

• Margins are 1" from both side, top, and bottom. 
• Use Times New Roman size 12 font. 
• Double space all lines. 
• Running head: in the right corner, one-half inch from the top, put the last name of the author(s) and the page number (Ex. Smith 1). 

Heading (MLA 1.3)

• Writer's Name(s)
• Instructor's Name(s)
• Course Number (Ex.: English 5)
• Date (Number Month Year; Ex.: 2 April 2020)
• NOTE: your instructor may prefer that you use a title page, in which case move all the information in the header and title to its own page starting one-quarter of the way from the top of the page. 

Title (MLA 1.3)

• On the line immediately after the date in the header. 
• Centered. 
• Use plain text (not bold, italicized, underlined, or in quotation marks).
• Capitalize all words except articles and prepositions. 
• NOTE: your instructor may prefer that you use a title page, in which case move all the information in the header and title to its own page starting one-quarter of the way from the top of the page. 

Text (MLA 1.2)

• Indent the first line of every paragraph by a half-inch. 
• Short quotes can be surrounded by quotation marks and inserted in the lines of the text.
• Long quotes do not use quotation marks and are separated out onto their own lines, all of which begin one-half inch from the left margin. 
• Do not hyphenate words in order to separate them onto two separate lines. This often happens because your document is not set to left justify or because you have auto-hyphenate on. 
• The punctuation mark at the end of a sentence is followed by a single space. 

Works Cited (MLA 1.6)

• Begin on a new page. 
• Center the title "Works Cited" (if there is only one entry, title "Work Cited"). 
• The first line of a citation is flush left and any subsequent lines are indented one-half inch from the left (a.k.a. a "hanging indent"). 
• Alphabetize the list by first word in the citation.
• See more guidelines in the Works Cited tab. 
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Jerz's Literacy Weblog (est. 1999)

Mla format papers: step-by-step tips for formatting research essays in mla style.

Jerz >  Writing > Academic     [ Argument | Title  |  Thesis  |  Blueprint  | Pro/Con | Quoting | MLA Format ]

(View a Google Doc template for an MLA Style paper .)

0.1) If you’ve been asked to submit a paper in MLA style, your instructor is asking you to format the page and present the content in a specific way. Just as football referees dress a certain way, and Japanese chefs cook a certain way, writers in certain disciplines follow a certain set of conventions. This document will show you how to format an essay in MLA style.

0.2) If, instead of questions about putting the final formatting touches on your essay, you have questions about what to write, see instead my handouts on writing a short research paper , coming up with a good thesis statement , and using quotations in the body of your paper .

• Document Settings (1 inch margins; double spaced; 12-point)
• Page Header (name and page number, upper right of every page)
• Title Block (assignment info and an informative title)
• Citations (no comma between the author and page number; commas and periods go outside of inline quotes)
• Works Cited List (lots of tricky details! sort alphabetically by author, not by the order the quotes appear in your paper)

For the most complete information, check your campus library or writing center for the  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers , 8th ed.

MLA Style Format (First Page)

How to format the Works Cited page of an MLA style paper.

1. Document Settings

Your word processor comes with default settings (margin, line height, paragraph spacing, and typeface) that will likely need adjustment. For MLA style, you need:

1.1 Adjusting Document Settings in MS-Word (Windows)

My copy of Microsoft Word for Windows defaults to

• 1-inch margins all around
• 1.15 line height
• 10pt spacing between paragraphs
• Calibri 11-point  typeface.

Changing to MLA Style (Windows)

• The default margins in my test run were fine, but if you need to change them: Page Layout -> Margins -> Normal (1-inch all around)
• The default line height is too low. Change it to 2.0. Home -> Line Spacing -> 2.0. (You could try fudging it to 1.9 or 2.1 to meet a page count, but any more than that and your instructor may notice.)
• The MS-Word default adds extra space after paragraphs.(MLA Style instead requires you to  signal paragraph breaks by indenting the first line.) CTRL-A (select all your text) Home -> Line Spacing -> Remove Space After Paragraph
• Change the typeface to Times New Roman 12-point. Home -> Font Face Selector (change to Times New Roman) Home -> Font Size Selector (change to 12)

1.2 Adjusting Document Settings in MS-Word (Mac)

My copy of  microsoft word for mac defaults to.

• 1.25 inch left and right margins, 1 inch top and bottom
• 1.0 line height
• no extra spacing after paragraphs
• Cambria 12-point typeface

Changing to MLA style (Mac)

• In my test run, the left and right margins are too big. To change them: Layout -> Margins -> Normal (1-inch all around)
• The default line height is too low. Change it to 2.0. Home -> Line Spacing  -> 2.0
• My Mac copy of MS-Word does not add extra spaces after paragraphs. If yours does: Home -> Line Spacing  -> Line Spacing Options… (a new window will pop up) Don’t add space between paragraphs of the same style (check this box) -> OK
• The 12-point Cambria will probably be fine, but to change the typeface: Home -> Font Face Selector (change to Times New Roman) Home -> Font Size Selector (change to 12)

2. Page Header

In the top right of every page, use your word processor’s “Page Header” function add an automatic page number and your surname.

2.1 Adding the Page Header in MS-Word (Windows)

• Insert -> Page Number -> Top of Page -> (choose the right-justified “Plain Number” option)
• The cursor will jump automatically to the right place for you to t ype your surname .
• Click anywhere in the body of the paper to exit the header area.

2.2 Adding the Page Header in MS-Word (Mac)

• Insert (in the top menu) -> Page Numbers…  -> (Set “Position” to “Top of Page (header)” and “Alignment” to “Right”)
• Click just to the left of the new page number, and type your surname .
• On my test document, my name was too far over to the left; grab the triangular tab adjuster just above your name, and drag it a notch to the right .

3. Title Block

In the upper left corner, type your name, your instructor’s name, the course number and section, and today’s date. Centered on the next line, type an informative title that actually informs the reader of your main point (not just “English Paper” or “A Comparison between Hamlet and Macbeth”).

• Like all the other text in an MLA style paper, the title block is double-spaced .
• The title is in the same font as the rest of the paper — it is not boldface, or enlarged.
• There is  no extra space above or below the title.
• A truly informative title will include the general topic, and your precise opinion on that topic.  (So, if you pan to compare Hamlet and Macbeth, your title should state the unique point you want to make about Hamlet and Macbeth. Reuse part of your thesis statement.)

4. Citations

This handout presumes you already know why you should cite your sources (to establish your authority, to introduce persuasive evidence, to avoid plagiarism , etc.). 

To fully cite a source requires two stages.  The first happens in the body of your paper (the “in-text citation”) and the second happens on a separate page at the end of your paper (see “Works Cited List,” below.)

4.1 Citing a Block Quote (more than three lines)

• Long quotes can start to look like filler. Only use a block quote if you have a very good reason to include the whole passage. (You can usually make your point with a shorter quote.)

• Place the parenthetical citation (the author’s name and the page number) after the period . (This is different from inline quotes, below.)
• There is no comma between the author’s name and the page number.
• If the quotation runs across more than one page: (Wordsworth-Fuller 20-21) or (Wordsworth-Fuller 420-21).
• Skip wordy introductions such as, “In his informative guide The Amazing Writing Book , published by Elizabeth Mount College in 2010, the noted composition expert Maxwell Wordsworth-Fuller describes the importance of citations in MLA style papers.” Cutting the filler leaves more room to develop your own original ideas. (See “ Integrating Quotations .”)

4.2 Citing an Inline Quotation

When the passage you want to quote is less than three lines long, use inline style.  Here we have two brief passages, taken from the same page of the same source, so we can handle both with a single parenthetical citation.

• The parenthetical citation appears outside the quoted material.
• The period that ends the sentence comes after the close parenthesis . (This is different from block quotes, above.)
• In this example, we have changed the first word a little, lowercasing it in order to fit it into our own sentence. To let the reader know what we changed, we put [] around it.
• Again, note the absence of a full sentence that explains who Wordsworth-Fuller is and where the quote comes from. All that info will be in the Works Cited list, so we leave it out of the body of the paper.

4.3 Citing a Paraphrase

Let’s imagine we want to reference Wordsworth-Fuller’s general idea about citation as a way to establish credibility, but we don’t need to include any of the technical details. We can save space, and make it much easier on our reader, if we paraphrase:

• Use paraphrasing for variety, or to make a passing reference without taking up much space.
• If we use an author’s idea, rephrased in our own words, we must still cite the idea.

Tips for avoiding common errors in MLA citations.

5. Works Cited List

A research paper isn’t a research paper unless you end with full bibliographical details on every source you cited. This part can be tedious and tricky; leave yourself plenty of time to do it.

How to format the “Works Cited” list of an MLA style paper.

• MS-Word Wind: Insert -> Page Break -> New Page.
• MS-Word Mac: Document Elements -> Break -> Page.
• Title your new page: Works Cited MLA style calls for no extra spaces above or below the page title; no special formatting.

5.1.  How to Create an Individual Works Cited Entry

Exactly what goes into each item in your bibliography depends on what kind of item it is. The general format is as follows:

Author. Title of Source. Container, contributors, version, volume and issue, publisher, date, location.

Exactly how that basic format gets turned into a Works Cited entry depends on the source.

Here’s the basic format for any book:

• Gibaldi, Joseph, and George Spelvin.
• Gibaldi, Joseph, Alan Smithee, and George Spelvin.
• GIbaldi, Joseph et al.
• The italicized phrase “ et al. ” is an abbreviation for the Latin “et alia,” meaning “and others.”
• The “ al. ” is short for a longer word, so we mark the abbreviation with a period.
• The “ et” is not an abbreviation, so it doesn’t get a period.
• Place periods after the author’s name, after the title of the book, and at the end of the entry.
• The title of the book is italicized .
• The publisher is the name of the organization responsible for publishing the book. In this example it’s the Modern Language Association. It might instead be Project Gutenberg, the US Department of Agriculture, or the World Health Organization,

Basic Format for Any Academic Article

Author. “Title of Article in Quotation Marks.” Title of Journal in Italics, volume #, issue #, YEAR, pp. [pages of article]. Italicized Name of Database.

Let’s break that example down.

The author Margaret Kantz wrote the article “Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively.” That article doesn’t exist on its own floating in space; it was published by a journal called College English,  in the 52nd year of publication, in the first issue of its 52nd volume, in the year 1990, the article started on page 74 and ran through page 91. The student found this article while searching the database Academic Search Elite .

Every academic article has a specific title, and is published in a journal with a different title. (Online citation generators often get this wrong, and will often repeat the same title twice.)

What is this “volume 52, number 1”?

If  College English were a TV series, then “volume” would be which season, and “number” would be the episode number. The title of the article would be the equivalent of a scene within that episode.

The title of the database, Academic Search Elite , is like the title of the streaming service you’d need to sign into. If you were talking about your favorite TV show and you told me it was on Netflix, or Disney+, I could find it. But if you told me “It’s on my MacBook” or “It’s on my Samsung phone,” that wouldn’t help me to find it.

Basic Format for Any Web Page

In the above example, reporter Camila Domonoske filed a news story called “Students Have ‘Dismaying’ Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds,” that aired on a news program called The Two-Way , which is published by National Public Radio, and the story aired Nov 23, 2016.

In MLS Style, the full URL is optional. Really long URLs with long strings of numbers in them are often generated for specific users, so someone else who visits that same URL will often get an error message.

You might shorten the URL to “npr.org,” because it would be a simple matter to use a search engine to find the actual story.

Other Citation Examples

What if your source doesn’t fit any of my examples?

You might be trying to cite something that doesn’t fit the above pattern, like a social media post, a video game, a work of art, an email from a relative, a billboard, or something else. It’s just not practical for me to try to include an example of every single thing it’s possible to cite.

The MLA citation format is designed to be flexible, so that it works for forms of media that haven’t been invented yet.

See Purdue OWL’s handouts for how to create a bibliography entry for a book , an article in a  periodical (such as a journal or newspaper), or an  electronic source (such as an email, web page or a YouTube clip). See also this list of  other common sources  (such as a personal interview or a movie).

5.2.  How to Organize Your Works Cited list

Sort the entries alphabetically by the author ‘s last name.

• If the author is an organization (such as a government agency or non-profit foundation), alphabetize according to the name of the organization .
• If you are citing a painting, or a composer, then obviously “author” has to be interpreted a little loosely.
• Unless your instructor ask you to organize your Works Cited list differently,  everything should be alphabetized together, in a single list. MLA does not require that you separate works of different kinds, or that you cite works in the order that they appeared in your paper, or that you write annotations to go along with each item.
• Use double-spaced line height. (in my copy of Word, I select the text and choose Format -> Paragraph ->  Line spacing -> Double -> OK.)
• Use hanging indent paragraph format. (In my copy of word, I select the text then choose Format -> Paragraph -> Indentation -> Special -> Hanging Indent.)

29 May 2011 — new document posted, replacing outdated handout written in 1999. 06 Jun 2011 — expanded section on organizing the Works Cited list, since several readers asked for clarification. 07 Jun 2011 — reorganized for emphasis 19 Apr 2012 — added numbers to more subheads 24 Mar 2014 — added details on Works Cited paragraph formatting. 02 Oct 2016 — updated with MLA 8th Edition details. 30 Nov 2016 — added annotated Works Cited sample image. 07 Sep 2020 — updated section 5.1

571 thoughts on “ MLA Format Papers: Step-by-step Tips for Formatting Research Essays in MLA Style ”

This guide to formatting MLA style papers is incredibly detailed and helpful! It’s great to have step-by-step instructions for setting up everything from margins to citations correctly. Thanks for sharing—this will definitely make writing research papers in MLA format much easier!

The information was very helpful

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Thanks for sharing such an informative post with us.

fantastic information

Thanks for info!

hello i am nate sedmack i am here to kill all the furries for what they did to gavin born

I’m learning more writing a paper

it was very informational and helped me a lot

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Curious how you would Cite this webpage? haha…

awesome reminders

what about if when your using a quote and there is no name just anonomus

Honestly, I’d say find another way to make your point. An anonymous saying like “A stitch in time saves nine” won’t help you demonstrate your ability to write the kind of scholarly paper that MLA is designed for. Certainly investigate the quote to find out whether it maybe comes from Shakespeare or some other source that you can quote. I might identify the example I used as “English proverb,” but since I won’t be marking your paper, you really should check with your instructor.

This article..thing is the only reason I am passing my online college class. Especially the citation builder. Thank you!

I would Like You To Give Simple Instructions Not Complicated Ones , and Include also how much Papers Should be worked on.

Khalid, if there is any particular detail you are confused about, please let me know what question you have and perhaps I can help. There is no specific answer to how much a paper should be worked on. It depends on what grade you want to earn, how much time you have, whether your instructor is willing to meet with you before the due date, whether your instructor will give you the chance to revise your work, and many other factors.

hahahah xD me too same

How do I cite a photo that I found online?

Is it a historical photograph or a photograph published in a book that someone scanned and posted on line, is it a photograph of something like a sculpture? Is your paper focused on the work of the photographer, the makeup artist who prepared the model, the digital image enhancer who altered the image, the model? There is no single correct way to cite a photograph, because there are many different reasons to cite a photograph. Your instructor would be able to give you more specific advice. In general, though, the 8th edition of the MLA guide would say something like this:

Olsen, Jimmy. “Superman Rescues Boy Scouts from Lava Pit.” Photograph. The Daily Planet . July 22, 1956.

If you found the picture on a blog or a Flickr gallery, adjust the citation accordingly. If you found the image as the result of a Google search for something, you might very well end up finding a page that re-uses someone else’s picture without appropriately giving credit. There are many variables. Talk to your instructor, who will be the one grading your work, and will therefore be the right person to advise you on what to do.

is the text or what you wrote supposed to be centered in the page or to the left margin

Left margin.

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cool it was helpful

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I think you should include online resource citation instructions

Click on “Citing” at the top of the page. One of the options on the other end of that link is how to cite a web page.

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which writing style (MLA, APA) have more importance for students of social sciences, media sciences and business?

It depends on the instructor or editor who’s calling the shots. http://subjectguides.library.american.edu/c.php?g=175008&p=1154150

Very informative. It helped introduce my tired old mind to the MLA format. So, I can better help coach and prepare my wife for her English course. Thank you very much.

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I’m using a book title and author as my paper heading. How is that formatted?

I would tell my own students that a book title and the name of an author is not a good paper title, and I would ask them to write a title that catches the reader’s attention, identifies the topic, and identifies what position the paper is going to take on the topic. But if you are not my student, then I’m not the person who will be evaluating your paper. MLA style puts the book title in italics. Other than that, I really don’t have any advice for you.

Thank you very much for this useful information. As a freshman in highschool, my biology teacher asked for me to write an essay in mLA format about evolution. I had no clue what mLA format was,so I searched it up and it brought me here. In middle school I never wrote an essay in this format before,but I feel very confident to type my first mLA essay and I’m excited to do so! (Right after I finish my draft >.<) thank you very much! （⌒▽⌒)✌

This wasn’t helpful at all

Shavez, what were you looking for? This page is about formatting a paper you have already written. The first section includes links to pages about how to write essays.

u a real nigga dennis

really dude my collies and I would prefer that you didn’t use any profane language due to younger children that may be reading this

thank u i got an A 97 percent

this was very helpful i got an A 95 percent

hi my name is Jessie i have to writ a 2 pages Essay about MLA can someone help me

Dennis, what lends itself to science in the APA system? And what lends itself to the Humanities with the MLA? TIA.

As compared to MLA papers, APA papers tend to be shorter, and divided up into sections. Authors who use APA style tend to publish more frequently, because their knowledge goes out of date more quickly; so the date is prominent in APA citations, and page numbers are rare.

By contrast, people who use MLA style tend to write longer essays that aren’t divided up into standard sections like “procedure” and “conclusions.” Humanities scholarship generally doesn’t go out of date quickly. Instead of conducting experiments, humanists read and write a lot of longer essays and books, re-interpreting and quoting passages from them. MLA style makes the page numbers prominent, so that other scholars can easily find and re-read those same passages for themselves, and further the work of scholarship as it is conducted in the humanities.

Thanks for the reply. What do you mean by ” MLA style tend to write longer essays that aren’t divided up into standard sections like “procedure” and “conclusions.”? Are we not suppose to use conclusions in MLA format? In my English class, we use MLA with conclusions, but what do you mean by “procedure” and “conclusions”? I understand each instructor is different but is it right to use conclusions in an MLA paper…or am I getting confused?

Typically papers written in MLA style DO have a conclusion, but it would not be set off in a separate section under the subheading “Conclusion.” MLA papers tend NOT to follow a standard, particular structure. Papers written in the sciences DO have a fairly rigid set of sections, with separate subheadings. But it’s best for you to talk to your teacher about the specifics of any asisgnment.

Ok, thanks. I just wanted to ask and clarify it. Also, doesn’t the word “humanist” means something else entirely? The Humanist term today implies ‘human’ and is often used for atheists, for example… or am I wrong?

I used the term “humanist” to mean “a person who studies the culture of humans,” without intending the more specific meaning you mention. At my school, the humanities division includes theologians.

seems easy enough

We get asked often about what “format” the college application essay should be in. Although not generally… http://t.co/v1TTNxtE4e

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When using MLA format, do you list the book title, the title of the article or both?

For guidance on citing individual sources, see the link in item 4, above. This page is about formatting the paper once you’ve already written it.

I wrote a paper and it looks just like your example. I followed everything to the “t” and my professor says that my header is indented and my paragraphs are double indented and the page numbers are in wrong format. What can I do?

Winston, I suggest you talk to your professor. I have been teaching from thiis handout for years, and when a student makes a formatting error on a rough draft, I just ask them to fix it for the revision. But your instructor is the one who designed the assignment and who evaluates your submissions, so he or she is the person to approach with questions.

I agree. .let me ask you this. Are your headers indented?

The screenshot was taken from a page that I created following the instructions for using MS-Word with a MacBook Pro. I followed the instructions that are on the page. But surely your instructor gave you guidelines, in a handout or an assigned textbook, which is why I encourage you to have this conversation with your instructor. Whether your instructor does or does not agree with the information on this page really doesn’t matter, since your instructor created the assignment and evaluates it according to his or her own criteria. I suggest you let your your teacher know you are confused about what you did wrong, and ask for an opportunity to make minor formatting changes to a paper that, we hope, met all the major criteria.

How do you add footnotes to an MLA style paper?

Most word processors will have an Insert -> Footnote or Insert -> Note (footnote or endnote) option. Most short college papers don’t need footnotes. (They aren’t for documenting sources — use an in-text citation and a Works Cited list instead.) I suggest you talk to your instructor about whether you really do need to use a footnote.

RT @DennisJerz: MLA Format Papers: Step-by-step Instructions for Writing Research Essays #mlastyle http://t.co/B6pGb3Pkeh

Thank you so much!! I love the Bib builder!!

I’m glad to hear you found it helpful!

Dear Dr. Jerz,

I am writing to request permission to link your webpage, “MLA Format Papers: Step-by-step Instructions for Writing Research Essays” to our website.

Marie Walcroft Librarian Lansdale School of Business

I am glad you found this page helpful. Yes, you are welcome to include a link and a brief extract.

Can you put what information is supposed to be in each paragraph???

Emma, I’m afraid I don’t understand the question. I feel like you’ve asked me what emotions are supposed to be in each verse of a song, or what colors are supposed to be in a painting. The many different kinds of songs or paintings are all created for different reasons; likewise, paragraphs are assigned, written, and read for a whole range of different reasons, so there’s no answer that covers all possible cases.

that was beautiful

I really find this useful (especially fudging the line spacing to 2.1). Good job!

Im in middle school and I have to do this. I have never heard of MLA Format and this helped ALOT. Thanks so much! Hopefully I get a good grade on this paper!

“@pretti_slimm: @Thyler_Jonzy http://t.co/QIf00vlgws try this site looks helpful”I just found a sample paper on Google

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Is the Table of Contents double spaced – MLA?

i think you should add an explanation about page header. that was what i was looking for

See item 2 from the table of contents: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic1/mla-style-papers/#page-header

when you say page numbers (Wordworth-Fuller 20), are you referring to the page number within the MLA document or the page number the text appears on within the authors works?

In this case, your paper would be referring to something you found on page 20 of the text by Wordsworth-Fuller.

With your delicate information about to write MLA format essay in right way will lead me to successful college year.

Thank you for useful information about how to write MLA format essay. Before my college year I didn’t know there were many different forms of essay. When my professor asked me to write MLA format I had no idea how to write it, but with your delicate information I think I will survive my college year. Thank you again.

I’m glad to know you found this page helpful. Most instructors will be happy to help if you stop by during their office hours, and if your prof is too busy for that most universities will have a writing center where you can get help at any stage of any assignment involving writing.

Thank you for valuable information. Before my college year in America I didn’t know what MLA Format was, but with this delicate information I will survive my college year.

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That means the quote is from page 20 of the book or article written by Wordsworth-Fuller.

Very good information, I really needed this incite on research paper formats. It has such thorough details and that make it so much easier to understand.

How do you in text cite a website? I didnt really see much about that.

I think you should add an explanation about page numbers. That was what I was looking for, but I couldn’t find the significant area.

Section 2 explains how to put page numbers in the header, and section 4 discusses page numbers in citations.

read it… it’s there.

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MLA (Ninth Edition)

• MLA Ninth Edition: Checklist, Sample Papers and Template
• Get Started
• Formatting Your Research Project
• MLA - How To Videos
• Understanding MLA Containers
• In-Text Citations / Quoting in MLA
• MLA Standards
• MLA Ninth Citations - the general pattern
• MLA 9 - Various Examples
• How to: Numbers and Pronouns
• MLA Ninth Edition: Citing a Book
• MLA Ninth Edition: Citing a Newspaper, Magazine Or Journal (Print and Online)
• MLA Ninth Edition: Online Sources
• Changes from MLA 7 to MLA 8th and 9th edition

MLA Paper Checklist

In-text citations.

• Have you given credit to other sources when you’ve quoted and/or paraphrased throughout your paper?
• Are the in-text citations properly constructed according to MLA style?
• Does every in-text citation have a complete, matching citation in your Works Cited List?

Works Cited List

• Does it say Works Cited at the top of your page, centered, and without bolding or underlining?
• Is the Works Cited page double spaced?
• Are the citations in alphabetical order by the first word/name of each citation?
• Are the citations properly constructed according to MLA style?
• Is the second line of any citations longer than one line indented half an inch? This is called a “hanging indent” in your paragraph settings.
• Does each citation in the Works Cited list have a matching in-text citation in your assignment?

Overall Paper Presentation

• Did you cite the appropriate number of sources according to your assignment instructions?
• Is your paper double spaced?
• Unless specified otherwise by your instructor, is your paper in Times New Roman size 12 font?
• Did you create a header at the top right of each page with your last name and page number?

MLA Sample Papers

Taken from mla.org.

Second-year course in African American studies

Fourth-year course in English literature

MLA Sample Paper from OWL Purdue :

Recovery of 19th Century Farming Handbooks

MLA Templates:

MLA Microsoft Word Template

MLA Template in Google Docs

Some final Websites

There is more information on MLA format than you will know what to do with.  Here are just a few options if you need more clarity.  But, also think about scheduling an appointment with a Thomas Nelson librarian . Sometimes, the most important thing to getting it right is having someone help you get it right.  

• A Complete Guide to MLA 8 ( Chegg)
• The OWL by Purdue University  
• Updates to MLA 8  
• MLA 8 Citation Guide
• MLA Style by WW Norton
• Library @ Daemon College

MLA Examples

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MLA Style  is a standard for written communication that defines the  organization and content  of a paper and how to create  citations  of the works used to create your paper.

Organization and Content

• MLA guidelines for formatting a research paper
• Look at a  sample paper in MLA Style

Citations in MLA Style have two parts:

• Learn how to create citations  
• See a sample ʻWorks Citedʻ page
• Try using an automatic  Citation Builder  to create citations  
• Learn how to create in-text citations

If you prefer to use a print version of the MLA Handbook to create your Works Cited and in-text citations, you can find one at the library. 

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• URL: https://libguides.kauai.hawaii.edu/research

• How to setup your software
• Sample MLA Paper – normal paper
• Sample MLA Paper – has cover page
• Sample APA Paper
• Sample Chicago Paper
• Sample CSE Paper
• APA Format Guidelines
• MLA Format Sample Paper

MLA Format Sample Paper, First Page.

MLA Format Sample Paper, Second Page

MLA Format Sample Paper, Page 3

MLA Format Sample Paper, Page 4

MLA Format Sample Paper, Page 5

MLA Format Sample Paper, Page 6

MLA Format Sample Paper, Page 7, Works Cited Page

Source: Diana Hacker (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006).

If you find this website useful, please share with a friend:

Why is it that I pay my college thousands of dollars to try and understand this and a simple duck duck go search brings me here and it just clicks?

I understand it.. I get the idea of it but the thousands I spend on a college education doesn’t… I just get more frustrated and feel like I am a consumable item to the college that doesn’t matter…

I feel educated by this bit thanks a lot.

Great advice

Does it need to be double spaced?

Yes, double spaced, 12 point font and times new Roman font

Thank you very much for making MLA understandable.

When using a quote in a research paper are you supposed to correct punctuation or change words ie this particular quote used the word and a few times and the teacher grading said she used the word and too many times, use also or as well and wanted a plural form of a word instead on the one stated in the quote. Another quote she wanted a coma but there was no comma in the quote. She lost points on her grade due to this.

How can I cite the lines cited by the author from anothre book or article?

Big help, thanks.

What is the rule about widow/orphan for research papers – particularly in mla format?

How do I know what words go into parenthesis after I have quoted or pharaphrased? Is it the first word of each work citied or….?

I am writing a paper comparing two songs for a music class. If I am using song titles in the paper how should they be formatted, also band or artist names.

How do you incorporate quotes from articles into the essay and cite them directly in the essay?

The above sample essay is OUTDATED. It is from the 6th edition, not the 7th. The tale-tell clue is the Works Cited page. Current MLA guidelines no longer require URLs for internet sources but DO require identification of the type of source (print, web, film, etc.). This is very important for source identification in any student or professional essay. Omission of the source type usually results in major point deductions from the instructor..

Please update this sample document! The in-text citations are correct, but the Works Cited page is completely wrong.

Respond: Thank you Davis. This paper has been updated to follow the style guidelines in the latest MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th edition.

Thank you for making the MLA process a little easier! I would love to see a sample paper that’s not a full research paper, maybe just a response essay? HS students are asked to write these frequently but I haven’t seen any sample papers that are not research papers. Thanks again for making MLA format more understandable.

Friends, can you tell me where to find paper style for cbse 7th standard?

Hi Nisha, check out a CSE sample paper here . Googling “CSE format” should show some very useful results.

WOW CAROLINE ANSWER VERY EASY !!!!!!!!!!!

How do I cite a magazine article that is found on a website, but not on the official magazine’s website? In other words, someone else typed up a magazine article from years ago on their own website.

Hi Caroline,

Here is the format to cite articles found online:

Author. “Title of Article.” Title of Publication Date : Page(s) or Section(s), if numbered .  Date of Access <URL>.

How to write the work citation from the website if the writer’s name has not been given but only the title has been given? pleze somebody help me.

Citation: If author is given, you cite the author’s name. If no author is given, you cite the title instead.

Works Cited format, with author: Name of author inverted. Full Title . Publisher, Publication date. Access date URL of source.

Without author: Full Title . Publisher, Publication date. Access date URL of source.

Check out these links for more information: MLA Citations , Works Cited

Can someone please explain the MLA format for a works cited page? Thanks, 🙂

Hi Unknown 🙂

Please visit here: MLA format works cited

I have a question with which I hope you can help me. I have been searching for information on sub-titles and how they should be formatted using MLA.

Can you please advise?

Thanks, Yvonne

It was nice talking to you over email and thank you for verifying with your friend’s instructor. Together, we have developed a new page for MLA format subheadings .

I found an interesting website the other day that has citations from different works and it puts the citation in the proper MLA, APA format for you.

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MLA Sample Works Cited Page

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Note: We have chosen to include the date of access for the online sources below. The latest MLA guidelines specify that this is optional, but strongly recommended for sources whose date of publication is unavailable.

Note also: The citation for  An Inconvenient Truth  below assumes the film has been cited by its title in the text. If it had been cited by the name of its director, the citation would need to begin with Guggenheim's surname. MLA guidelines specify that both styles are acceptable (see, e.g., this  "Ask the MLA" page ).

Works Cited

Dean, Cornelia. "Executive on a Mission: Saving the Planet." The New York Times , 22 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/science/earth/22ander.html?_r=0. Accessed 29 May 2019.

Ebert, Roger. Review of  An Inconvenient Truth , directed by Davis Guggenheim.  Ebert Digital LLC , 1 June 2006, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/an-inconvenient-truth-2006. Accessed 15 June 2019.

Gowdy, John. "Avoiding Self-Organized Extinction: Toward a Co-Evolutionary Economics of Sustainability." International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, vol. 14, no. 1, 2007, pp. 27-36.

Harris, Rob, and Andrew C. Revkin. “Clinton on Climate Change.”  The New York Times , 17 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/1194817109438/clinton-on-climate-change.html. Accessed 29 July 2016.

An Inconvenient Truth . Directed by Davis Guggenheim, Paramount, 2006.

Leroux, Marcel. Global Warming: Myth or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology . Springer, 2005.

Milken, Michael, et al. "On Global Warming and Financial Imbalances." New Perspectives Quarterly , vol. 23, no. 4, 2006, p. 63.

Nordhaus, William D. "After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global Warming." American Economic Review , vol. 96, no. 2, 2006, pp. 31-34.

---. "Global Warming Economics." Science, vol. 294, no. 5545, 9 Nov. 2001, pp. 1283-84, DOI: 10.1126/science.1065007.

Regas, Diane. “Three Key Energy Policies That Can Help Us Turn the Corner on Climate.” Environmental Defense Fund , 1 June 2016, www.edf.org/blog/2016/06/01/3-key-energy-policies-can-help-us-turn-corner-climate. Accessed 19 July 2016.

Revkin, Andrew C. “Clinton on Climate Change.” The New York Times , 17 May 2007, www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/1194817109438/clinton-on-climate-change.html. Accessed 29 July 2016.

Shulte, Bret. "Putting a Price on Pollution." US News & World Report , vol. 142, no. 17, 14 May 2007, p. 37. Ebsco, Access no: 24984616.

Uzawa, Hirofumi. Economic Theory and Global Warming . Cambridge UP, 2003.

Mastering Citations: Your Complete Reference Companion: MLA

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MLA  (Modern Language Association) style is a standardized format for writing and citing sources in academic papers, commonly used in humanities disciplines like literature and the arts. The p urpose of MLA style is to provide a uniform format for writing and documenting scholarly papers.

MLA Additional Resources

The   Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL)   provides comprehensive MLA formatting and citation guidelines, along with examples and writing resources. 

The official  MLA Style Center  offers detailed explanations, examples, and answers to common questions about MLA format and citation. 

The MLA Handbook is the official resource book for MLA formatting and citation guidelines, available through the TSU Library Learning Center.

Scribbr's MLA Citation Style Playlist:  A series of informative video tutorials by Scribbr, guiding students through the nuances of MLA citation style with clear explanations and examples.

A QUICK OVERVIEW

A comprehensive video tutorial by Chegg covering the essential elements and formatting guidelines for writing papers in MLA style.

MLA Handbook

Formatting Guidelines

• Color-Coded Citations
• MLA Style Formatting Guidelines A concise and practical document, outlining essential formatting rules and guidelines for MLA style to assist students in correctly formatting their academic papers.

Color-Coded APA Citations

• Color-Coded MLA Citations Effortlessly master MLA citations with our color-coded guide, which highlights each component by style and source type for precise and easy reference.
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• Last Updated: Aug 8, 2024 3:35 PM
• URL: https://tsu.libguides.com/citations

Cite Sources Accurately in 10,000+ Styles with Paperpal’s New Citation Generator

Table of Contents

Accurate citations are crucial for ensuring academic integrity, but it’s not easy to get it right. Students and researchers often struggle with managing their references, formatting citations, and ensuring consistency between in-text citations and reference lists. Missing or incorrect citations raise the risk of plagiarism, resulting in academic penalties, retraction of published papers, loss of reputation, and even potential career setbacks.​ But what if there was a way to accurately cite sources without breaking your writing flow? Paperpal’s new online citation generator simplifies and enhances the citation process by allowing you to search, style, and cite sources as you write.  

Importance of Citations in Academic Writing   

Research progresses with previously published literature as the foundation, which makes it important to accurately cite and acknowledge the original authors and sources. This allows readers to easily locate referenced works for further reading or verification, enhancing transparency and trust in your findings. Authors are also expected to adhere to specific stylistic guidelines for formatting citations (in-line citations and reference lists) depending on the university or journal. Sounds easy enough, but if you consider that a research paper can have anywhere from 20 to 100+ references, cited multiple times in a paper, while review articles can have over 200 references, ensuring correct citations can be a Herculean task.  

Formatting Citations: Challenges for Authors  

Some of the most common problems academics face when adding citations to their writing include :  

• Reference Management: The manual process of creating and formatting citations can be very time-consuming. Keeping your references updated with the latest versions or editions of the sources can also be challenging, diverting time from actual research and writing.  
• Incorrect Source Attribution: Managing and organizing numerous sources can be overwhelming, leading to missing, misplaced, or misattributed citations. Failing to properly cite sources can result in unintentional plagiarism.  
• Formatting Errors: Ensuring citations are complete and consistently adhere to a specific formatting style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago) throughout the document can be tricky; any missing information (like page numbers or publication dates) can cause confusion or attribution errors.  
• Inconsistencies and Errors: Switching between in-text citations and full-text references when adding citations in your academic writing often leads to mistakes, affecting the overall quality of your thesis, dissertation or research paper.  

Introducing Paperpal’s Citation Generator  

With Paperpal’s new citation generator, there is no need to juggle between multiple tools to search, save, or format your citations. The free citation generator is seamlessly integrated into Paperpal’s writing workflow, empowering you to find and cite sources accurately in 10,000+ styles with a click. Available on Paperpal for Word and Web under the “Research & Cite” feature, this powerful citation maker automates this tedious process so you can focus on what truly matters: your research and writing.  

Why You Should Use Paperpal’s Free Citation Generator  

There are a number of citations tools in the market today, so what makes the Paperpal Citation Generator unique? Simply put, its comprehensive feature suite that allows you to research, write, cite, polish, and submit your work with confidence. Here’s a quick look at the benefits for academics:  

• In-Built Reference Management System: Focus on writing without the distraction of manual citation formatting. With an integrated reference finder and citation generator, Paperpal allows you to get factual insights from 250M+ research articles, save relevant papers to the citation library, and style and cite these correctly in 10,000+ styles in your writing with a click.
• Ensure Accuracy: Instantly produce citations that are complete with all the essential information, accurately formatted, and styled consistently across your document, eliminating citation errors that can impact your academic writing quality.
• Consistency in In-Text and Full-Text References: Achieve uniformity between in-text citations and full-text references effortlessly on Paperpal. If you’re writing on MS Word, simply copy and paste the styled citation and reference list into your text. Those using the Web editor can benefit from our one-click in-text citation capabilities, although automatic formatting of your reference list is only available to Prime members.
• Change Citation Styles as Needed: Those who want to cite the same source in different styles can do this easily with the Paperpal free reference generator. Simply choose the paper, pick your citation style, and generate accurately formatted citations on the go.
• Available Free, Without Ads: Not only is the online citation generator free to use, allowing you to style unlimited citations as and when you need it, you will never have to deal with any ad pop-ups or tabs that distract you from your writing . 
• All-in-One Solution: You no longer need to juggle multiple tools. Paperpal’s comprehensive feature suite is tailored to enhance and assist you at every step of the academic writing journey. Whether you need inspiration to overcome writer’s block, strengthen your text with science-backed insights, quickly write and develop your content, polish text for language, check for plagiarism, and ensure submission readiness, Paperpal has it all. 

Paperpal’s Citation Generator Covers Top Citation Styles  

Paperpal’s citation builder supports 10,000+ styles, all up-to-date versions, ensuring your writing is accurate, consistent, and professionally presented. Here’s a quick look at the top styles for citations in research papers it supports:    

• APA (American Psychological Association) – 7 th Edition: The latest APA style edition emphasizes the author-date method of citation, which is known for its straightforward format and clarity. It is widely used across the fields of psychology, education, and other social sciences.
• AMA (American Medical Association) – 11 th Edition: Updated to the most recent version, AMA citation style is primarily used in medical and health-related disciplines. It uses a numbered citation system, where references are listed in the order they appear in the text.
• MLA (Modern Language Association) – 9 th Edition: The MLA handbook follows an author-page number citation style. Known for its flexibility and simplicity, it is widely used when writing papers in the liberal arts and humanities. 
• Chicago (Chicago Manual of Style) – 17 th Edition: The updated Chicago style manual provides detailed formatting and citation guidelines. It offers two main systems: the Notes and Bibliography system (common in humanities field) and the Author-Date system (common in the sciences). 
• IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers): The IEEE citation style is commonly used across technical fields such as engineering, computer science and information technology. It uses a numbered citation system with bracketed references.

How does Paperpal’s Citation Generator Work?  

Spend less time formatting citations and more time on research with Paperpal’s citation generator, which allows you to research, write, and cite 2x faster. Here’s a quick step-by-step process to help you use this AI citation builder effectively.  

1.  Search for References:   Login to Paperpal , open a document, click on the Research & Cite tab. Type your question to get factual answers from 250Mn+ research articles, with links to verified sources. You can also search for specific papers by looking up their title or DOI in the search bar.   

2.  Add Sources to Citation Library:  Manage references better by saving them in Paperpal’s in-built citation library. You can retrieve and add papers you already know you want to cite or use the AI reference finder to look up and include new sources to strengthen your writing.   

3.  Style and Cite References:  Once a paper is added to the library, select it and click on Cite. Pick from the 10,000+ citation styles Paperpal covers and the AI will generate the citation correctly.   

4. Insert Into Your Document: Copy and paste the citations into your MS Word document or use the web-based editor to integrate them directly into your writing.

Paperpal Promotes the Responsible Use of AI  

While Paperpal’s free citation generator streamlines the citation process, it does not allow users to simply select text and generate AI recommended citations for it. To maintain academic integrity, we encourage and enable academics to do the required research, literature reading, and cite sources after understanding them. Using an AI in-text citation generator or simply citing a reference based on the abstract alone could be misleading. Moreover, to ensure accurate citations, Paperpal does not support styling for any free-text citations that users may add within their text.     

At Paperpal, we are dedicated to continuously improving and expanding our support for authors across the globe. The new citation generator is just one of the many tools we offer to make academic writing more accessible and efficient for academics. As we strive to enhance our platform, we remain committed to helping researchers and students achieve their best work. Ready to experience the ease of accurate, hassle-free citations? Explore Paperpal for Free Now!  

Paperpal is a comprehensive AI writing toolkit that helps students and researchers achieve 2x the writing in half the time. It leverages 21+ years of STM experience and insights from millions of research articles to provide in-depth academic writing, language editing, and submission readiness support to help you write better, faster.

Get accurate academic translations, rewriting support, grammar checks, vocabulary suggestions, and generative AI assistance that delivers human precision at machine speed.  Try for free or  upgrade to Paperpal Prime  starting at US$19 a month  to access premium features, including consistency, plagiarism, and 30+ submission readiness checks to help you succeed.

Experience the future of academic writing –  Sign up to Paperpal and start writing for free!

Related Reads:

• Preflight For Editorial Desk: The Perfect Hybrid (AI + Human) Assistance Against Compromised Manuscripts
• How Paperpal’s Built-In Academic Writing Prompts Make It a Better Alternative to ChatGPT
• QuillBot Review: Features, Pricing, and Free Alternatives
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How to cite ChatGPT

Use discount code STYLEBLOG15 for 15% off APA Style print products with free shipping in the United States.

We, the APA Style team, are not robots. We can all pass a CAPTCHA test , and we know our roles in a Turing test . And, like so many nonrobot human beings this year, we’ve spent a fair amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about issues related to large language models, artificial intelligence (AI), AI-generated text, and specifically ChatGPT . We’ve also been gathering opinions and feedback about the use and citation of ChatGPT. Thank you to everyone who has contributed and shared ideas, opinions, research, and feedback.

In this post, I discuss situations where students and researchers use ChatGPT to create text and to facilitate their research, not to write the full text of their paper or manuscript. We know instructors have differing opinions about how or even whether students should use ChatGPT, and we’ll be continuing to collect feedback about instructor and student questions. As always, defer to instructor guidelines when writing student papers. For more about guidelines and policies about student and author use of ChatGPT, see the last section of this post.

Quoting or reproducing the text created by ChatGPT in your paper

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications , with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Creating a reference to ChatGPT or other AI models and software

The in-text citations and references above are adapted from the reference template for software in Section 10.10 of the Publication Manual (American Psychological Association, 2020, Chapter 10). Although here we focus on ChatGPT, because these guidelines are based on the software template, they can be adapted to note the use of other large language models (e.g., Bard), algorithms, and similar software.

The reference and in-text citations for ChatGPT are formatted as follows:

• Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
• Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

Let’s break that reference down and look at the four elements (author, date, title, and source):

Author: The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date: The date is the year of the version you used. Following the template in Section 10.10, you need to include only the year, not the exact date. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title: The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference, as shown in the template. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. The format for the version number in ChatGPT references includes the date because that is how OpenAI is labeling the versions. Different large language models or software might use different version numbering; use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. References for a number of common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of a reference for ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. This is the case for ChatGPT. The URL for ChatGPT is https://chat.openai.com/chat . For other models or products for which you may create a reference, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

Other questions about citing ChatGPT

You may have noticed the confidence with which ChatGPT described the ideas of brain lateralization and how the brain operates, without citing any sources. I asked for a list of sources to support those claims and ChatGPT provided five references—four of which I was able to find online. The fifth does not seem to be a real article; the digital object identifier given for that reference belongs to a different article, and I was not able to find any article with the authors, date, title, and source details that ChatGPT provided. Authors using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for research should consider making this scrutiny of the primary sources a standard process. If the sources are real, accurate, and relevant, it may be better to read those original sources to learn from that research and paraphrase or quote from those articles, as applicable, than to use the model’s interpretation of them.

We’ve also received a number of other questions about ChatGPT. Should students be allowed to use it? What guidelines should instructors create for students using AI? Does using AI-generated text constitute plagiarism? Should authors who use ChatGPT credit ChatGPT or OpenAI in their byline? What are the copyright implications ?

On these questions, researchers, editors, instructors, and others are actively debating and creating parameters and guidelines. Many of you have sent us feedback, and we encourage you to continue to do so in the comments below. We will also study the policies and procedures being established by instructors, publishers, and academic institutions, with a goal of creating guidelines that reflect the many real-world applications of AI-generated text.

For questions about manuscript byline credit, plagiarism, and related ChatGPT and AI topics, the APA Style team is seeking the recommendations of APA Journals editors. APA Style guidelines based on those recommendations will be posted on this blog and on the APA Style site later this year.

Update: APA Journals has published policies on the use of generative AI in scholarly materials .

We, the APA Style team humans, appreciate your patience as we navigate these unique challenges and new ways of thinking about how authors, researchers, and students learn, write, and work with new technologies.

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

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