MLA Research Paper Formatting
- MLA 9th Template & Paper Sample
- Finding Sources for Your Paper
- Detailed Comparison (Printable)
- Additional Resources
MLA Style (9th Edition)
- Sample Papers
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.
- Purdue Owl Sample Paper Sample paper is downloadable.
- Sample Papers - MLA Style Center PDFs available of the 2022 MLA Student Essay Contest winners.
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18 Free MLA Format Templates (Word & PDF)
When writing a paper, there is no end to the number of resources you can find to back up your arguments. One of the guiding principles of writing is that you have to cite all the sources you use as references to your work. An MLA Format Template is a document that helps you do this by pointing out where to place author names, title pages, text citations, footnotes, and the like.
Using the MLA format to cite your work helps build your credibility and convinces readers of your accountability. It also protects you from plagiarism claims. Let’s review this system, how it applies to your writing, and how you can use it.
What Is MLA Format?
MLA is an acronym for Modern Language Association, and MLA format is a citing system typically used when writing a humanities or liberal arts paper. The system has been in place for over 5 decades and is mostly used by journalists, scholars, and other writers in the educational field.
Updates to the system are made regularly to address problems faced by users. The most recent version of the MLA format was released on April 2021 and is slightly different from other versions. Essentially, this format is built on giving credit where it is due, that is, citing all your sources in writing.
What Is an MLA Format Template?
An MLA Format Template is a fillable guideline that is formatted in the MLA style to help you remember the correct placements, order, fonts, headings, margins, etc., for citing purposes.
MLA Format Templates & Examples
MLA Format Resources
As mentioned, the core concept of the MLA format is citing all your resources in writing. If you have been tasked with writing an MLA format paper, you can learn more about the system through:
MLA Handbook
The MLA handbook is currently in its 8th edition and is designed to cater to writers of all levels, although it was created with teaching students in mind. This book explains the principles of citing sources, provides instructions on using the system, and gives guidelines on plagiarism and dishonesty in writing.
MLA Style Center
The MLA Style Center is a companion to the handbook and is the system’s official website. Through it, you can submit questions or share insights about the system, review sample templates, and read formatting guidelines about the style.
When to Use the MLA Format
As mentioned in the premise, the MLA style is typically used by students of the humanities or liberal arts. If you are a teacher or student in one of these fields, then you will likely use the format to write most of your papers. Specific disciplines that could require the format include:
- Foreign language and literature
- Literary criticism
- English studies in language and literature
- Comparative literary analysis
- Cultural studies
This list is exhaustive, and there are many other disciplines that could make use of MLA guidelines. Regardless of what you are writing, for instance, you could be specifically requested to use this style.
Types of Papers that Require MLA Citing
There are many forms of writing that require research and, in turn, source citing. Here are the common types of papers that could require MLA style formatting:
- Argumentative: These papers require a lot of resources to back up your arguments for or against a certain thesis.
- Cause and effect: Since cause and effect papers are built on believable facts, they also involve a significant amount of citing.
- Expository: You can use MLA citations to back up the background information on your Expository paper.
- Persuasive papers
- Literary papers
Guide for Making MLA Format Templates
The MLA format is regulated by several guidelines designed to ensure uniformity in citing sources. Here are the style rules you should know to use this style:
- Heading: The heading, which is usually double spaced and left-aligned, includes your name, your instructor’s name, the course name, and the date in order. The date should be written in the DD/MM/YY format.
- Body: The text in the body must be double-spaced, aligned to the left, and every new paragraph should begin with a half-an-inch indentation.
- Header: The headers include your last name and the page number placed a half-inch from the top of the page and in the left top-right corner of each page.
- Title: The paper title should be centered with no additional formatting styles.
- Margins: Always create 1-inch margins on the top, bottom, and sides of your standard US letter-size pages.
- Text: Use a legible font like Times New Roman in the 12pt size and double-space the document.
- Blockquotes: Block any quotes that exceed four lines, don’t use quotation marks except when quoting dialogue, and double space and 1-inch indent your block quotes.
Formatting Guide for MLA Format Template
Now that you know how to format the individual parts of an MLA format document, let us review some general formatting guidelines:
General Guidelines
- Use the standard US letter size for your paper (8.5 x 11-inches) and print on normal white paper.
- Double-space all the text in your document.
- Choose a font where the regular and italics styles can be differentiated.
- Leave single spaces after punctuation marks.
- Use italic for long titles. Otherwise, only use italics for emphasis.
- Create a separate ‘Notes’ page for your endnotes and place it before the ‘Works Cited’ page.
- Unless your instructor says otherwise, you should always follow these guidelines.
Formatting the First Page
- Don’t create a title page unless your instructor tells you to.
- Place the heading in the upper left corner of the first page and ensure it is double-spaced.
- Place the title in the center of the page in standard capitalization. Don’t add any formatting styles.
- Use quotation marks or italics when referring to other works.
- Add a double space between the title and the first line of text.
- Use Arabic numerals for page numbers.
- Use section headings to make your document more scannable.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do i set up mla format.
Setting up an MLA format involves the following steps:
- From the tabs and command functions, click Insert, then Page Number, and select Plain Number 3 from the Top of Page window. This creates page numbers.
- Go to fonts and set it to Times New Roman and size point 12.
- Enter and center your title.
- Use the tab key to ½ -inch indent the first line of every paragraph.
- On a new page, set up the Works Cited page.
- Go to Paragraph, click on Special under Indention, and select Hanging to create a hanging indention for this page.
What is the MLA website format?
An MLA website format is a citation that includes the name of the author, page title in the quotation makes, website name, its publication date, and the URL minus the “HTTPS://.”
How do I format a paper in MLA style?
- Write on 8 ½ x 11″ paper.
- Create 1-inch margins on the sides, top, and bottom.
- Indent the first word in every paragraph ½ an inch.
- Indent block quotations ½ an inch from the left margins.
- Use an easy-to-read font, like Times New Roman, in 12-point size.
- Double-space your paper, including the citations page.
Do I need a title page for my MLA paper?
MLA-formatted research papers don’t usually need a title page, but you can add one if your instructor asks you to do so.
Final Thoughts
Using an MLA Format Template when writing your paper will help protect you from all the trouble that could arise from a plagiarism claim. It might seem like a lot of work for nothing, but it actually boosts your credibility as a writer and lends an air of professionalism to your paper. What’s more, you don’t have to start citing from scratch every time you write a paper as long as you have a template!
How did our templates helped you today?
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MLA 9th Edition
- Paper Templates & Examples
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.
- Last Updated: Mar 19, 2024 2:30 PM
- URL: https://library.surry.edu/MLAstyle
Purdue Online Writing Lab College of Liberal Arts
MLA Formatting and Style Guide
Welcome to the Purdue OWL
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Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.
The following overview should help you better understand how to cite sources using MLA 9 th edition, including how to format the Works Cited page and in-text citations.
Please use the example at the bottom of this page to cite the Purdue OWL in MLA. See also our MLA vidcast series on the Purdue OWL YouTube Channel .
Creating a Works Cited list using the ninth edition
MLA is a style of documentation that may be applied to many different types of writing. Since texts have become increasingly digital, and the same document may often be found in several different sources, following a set of rigid rules no longer suffices.
Thus, the current system is based on a few guiding principles, rather than an extensive list of specific rules. While the handbook still describes how to cite sources, it is organized according to the process of documentation, rather than by the sources themselves. This gives writers a flexible method that is near-universally applicable.
Once you are familiar with the method, you can use it to document any type of source, for any type of paper, in any field.
Here is an overview of the process:
When deciding how to cite your source, start by consulting the list of core elements. These are the general pieces of information that MLA suggests including in each Works Cited entry. In your citation, the elements should be listed in the following order:
- Title of source.
- Title of container,
- Other contributors,
- Publication date,
Each element should be followed by the corresponding punctuation mark shown above. Earlier editions of the handbook included the place of publication and required different punctuation (such as journal editions in parentheses and colons after issue numbers) depending on the type of source. In the current version, punctuation is simpler (only commas and periods separate the elements), and information about the source is kept to the basics.
Begin the entry with the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the rest of the name, as presented in the work. End this element with a period.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
Title of source
The title of the source should follow the author’s name. Depending upon the type of source, it should be listed in italics or quotation marks.
A book should be in italics:
Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House . MacMurray, 1999.
An individual webpage should be in quotation marks. The name of the parent website, which MLA treats as a "container," should follow in italics:
Lundman, Susan. "How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow, www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html.*
A periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper) article should be in quotation marks:
Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature , vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.
A song or piece of music on an album should be in quotation marks. The name of the album should then follow in italics:
Beyoncé. "Pray You Catch Me." Lemonade, Parkwood Entertainment, 2016, www.beyonce.com/album/lemonade-visual-album/.
*The MLA handbook recommends including URLs when citing online sources. For more information, see the “Optional Elements” section below.
Title of container
The eighth edition of the MLA handbook introduced what are referred to as "containers," which are the larger wholes in which the source is located. For example, if you want to cite a poem that is listed in a collection of poems, the individual poem is the source, while the larger collection is the container. The title of the container is usually italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows next describes the container.
Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.
The container may also be a television series, which is made up of episodes.
“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, performance by Amy Poehler, season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2010.
The container may also be a website, which contains articles, postings, and other works.
Wise, DeWanda. “Why TV Shows Make Me Feel Less Alone.” NAMI, 31 May 2019, www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/May-2019/How-TV-Shows-Make-Me-Feel-Less-Alone . Accessed 3 June 2019.
In some cases, a container might be within a larger container. You might have read a book of short stories on Google Books , or watched a television series on Netflix . You might have found the electronic version of a journal on JSTOR. It is important to cite these containers within containers so that your readers can find the exact source that you used.
“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation , season 2, episode 21, NBC , 29 Apr. 2010. Netflix, www.netflix.com/watch/70152031?trackId=200256157&tctx=0%2C20%2C0974d361-27cd-44de-9c2a-2d9d868b9f64-12120962.
Langhamer, Claire. “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England.” Historical Journal , vol. 50, no. 1, 2007, pp. 173-96. ProQuest, doi:10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Accessed 27 May 2009.
Other contributors
In addition to the author, there may be other contributors to the source who should be credited, such as editors, illustrators, translators, etc. If their contributions are relevant to your research, or necessary to identify the source, include their names in your documentation.
Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard , Vintage-Random House, 1988.
Woolf, Virginia. Jacob’s Room . Annotated and with an introduction by Vara Neverow, Harcourt, Inc., 2008.
If a source is listed as an edition or version of a work, include it in your citation.
The Bible . Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.
Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd ed., Pearson, 2004.
If a source is part of a numbered sequence, such as a multi-volume book or journal with both volume and issue numbers, those numbers must be listed in your citation.
Dolby, Nadine. “Research in Youth Culture and Policy: Current Conditions and Future Directions.” Social Work and Society: The International Online-Only Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2008, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 20 May 2009.
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Translated by H. E. Butler, vol. 2, Loeb-Harvard UP, 1980.
The publisher produces or distributes the source to the public. If there is more than one publisher, and they are all relevant to your research, list them in your citation, separated by a forward slash (/).
Klee, Paul. Twittering Machine. 1922. Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Artchive, www.artchive.com/artchive/K/klee/twittering_machine.jpg.html. Accessed May 2006.
Women's Health: Problems of the Digestive System . American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2006.
Daniels, Greg and Michael Schur, creators. Parks and Recreation . Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2015.
Note : The publisher’s name need not be included in the following sources: periodicals, works published by their author or editor, websites whose titles are the same name as their publisher, websites that make works available but do not actually publish them (such as YouTube , WordPress , or JSTOR ).
Publication date
The same source may have been published on more than one date, such as an online version of an original source. For example, a television series might have aired on a broadcast network on one date, but released on Netflix on a different date. When the source has more than one date, it is sufficient to use the date that is most relevant to your writing. If you’re unsure about which date to use, go with the date of the source’s original publication.
In the following example, Mutant Enemy is the primary production company, and “Hush” was released in 1999. Below is a general citation for this television episode:
“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer , created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, Mutant Enemy, 1999 .
However, if you are discussing, for example, the historical context in which the episode originally aired, you should cite the full date. Because you are specifying the date of airing, you would then use WB Television Network (rather than Mutant Enemy), because it was the network (rather than the production company) that aired the episode on the date you’re citing.
“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, WB Television Network, 14 Dec. 1999 .
You should be as specific as possible in identifying a work’s location.
An essay in a book or an article in a journal should include page numbers.
Adiche, Chimamanda Ngozi. “On Monday of Last Week.” The Thing around Your Neck, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, pp. 74-94 .
The location of an online work should include a URL. Remove any "http://" or "https://" tag from the beginning of the URL.
Wheelis, Mark. "Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention." Emerging Infectious Diseases , vol. 6, no. 6, 2000, pp. 595-600, wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/6/6/00-0607_article. Accessed 8 Feb. 2009.
When citing a physical object that you experienced firsthand, identify the place of location.
Matisse, Henri. The Swimming Pool. 1952, Museum of Modern Art, New York .
Optional elements
The ninth edition is designed to be as streamlined as possible. The author should include any information that helps readers easily identify the source, without including unnecessary information that may be distracting. The following is a list of optional elements that can be included in a documented source at the writer’s discretion.
Date of original publication:
If a source has been published on more than one date, the writer may want to include both dates if it will provide the reader with necessary or helpful information.
Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. 1984. Perennial-Harper, 1993.
City of publication:
The seventh edition handbook required the city in which a publisher is located, but the eighth edition states that this is only necessary in particular instances, such as in a work published before 1900. Since pre-1900 works were usually associated with the city in which they were published, your documentation may substitute the city name for the publisher’s name.
Thoreau, Henry David. Excursions . Boston, 1863.
Date of access:
When you cite an online source, the MLA Handbook recommends including a date of access on which you accessed the material, since an online work may change or move at any time.
Bernstein, Mark. "10 Tips on Writing the Living Web." A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites, 16 Aug. 2002, alistapart.com/article/writeliving. Accessed 4 May 2009.
As mentioned above, while the MLA handbook recommends including URLs when you cite online sources, you should always check with your instructor or editor and include URLs at their discretion.
A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a series of digits and letters that leads to the location of an online source. Articles in journals are often assigned DOIs to ensure that the source is locatable, even if the URL changes. If your source is listed with a DOI, use that instead of a URL.
Alonso, Alvaro, and Julio A. Camargo. "Toxicity of Nitrite to Three Species of Freshwater Invertebrates." Environmental Toxicology , vol. 21, no. 1, 3 Feb. 2006, pp. 90-94. Wiley Online Library, doi: 10.1002/tox.20155.
Creating in-text citations using the previous (eighth) edition
Although the MLA handbook is currently in its ninth edition, some information about citing in the text using the older (eighth) edition is being retained. The in-text citation is a brief reference within your text that indicates the source you consulted. It should properly attribute any ideas, paraphrases, or direct quotations to your source, and should direct readers to the entry in the Works Cited list. For the most part, an in-text citation is the author’s name and the page number (or just the page number, if the author is named in the sentence) in parentheses :
When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).
Again, your goal is to attribute your source and provide a reference without interrupting your text. Your readers should be able to follow the flow of your argument without becoming distracted by extra information.
How to Cite the Purdue OWL in MLA
Entire Website
The Purdue OWL . Purdue U Writing Lab, 2019.
Individual Resources
Contributors' names. "Title of Resource." The Purdue OWL , Purdue U Writing Lab, Last edited date.
The new OWL no longer lists most pages' authors or publication dates. Thus, in most cases, citations will begin with the title of the resource, rather than the developer's name.
"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL, Purdue U Writing Lab. Accessed 18 Jun. 2018.