Research Paper Formatting

Title page: not necessary, unless your teacher otherwise specifies

Title: One inch from the top of the first page and flush with the left margin, type your name, your instructor’s name, the course name and number, and the date on separate double-spaced lines. On a new double-spaced line, center the title. Do not italicize or underline your title, put it in quotation marks or boldface, or type it in all capital letters. 

Running Header: right justify your last name and the page number on all pages, 12 pt. font

Margins: one inch on all sides

Font: Times New Roman, size 12

Spacing: double spaced

Paragraphs: indented .5 inches

Works Cited: see instruction page here

Bells and Whistles

Internal Headings

Sub headings in the body of your research project can help organize and structure your writing, but you should avoid overusing them. Following general capitalization procedures, keep your head flush with the left margin, not indented or centered. For readability, include a line space above and below a heading. Generally avoid using numbers and letters to designate headings unless you are working in a discipline where using them is conventional. You may want to bold or italicize your heading based on your teacher's preference to set it apart from the rest of the paper.

Footnotes

These are not common in MLA style. Avoid footnoting in an English research paper and consult Chicago and APA style for other course papers.

Annotated Bibliography

An annotated bibliography is a special assignment that lists sources in a way similar to the MLA Works Cited list, but providing an annotation for each source giving extra information. You might be assigned an annotated bibliography as part of the research process for a paper, or as an individual assignment. MLA provides guidelines for writing and formatting your annotated bibliography. 

Head your document as Annotated Bibliography. Organize your sources alphabetically. The source information is presented and formatted in the same way as in a normal Works Cited entry:

Double-spaced

Left-aligned

0.5 inch hanging indent

MLA states that annotations usually aim to be concise and thus are only one paragraph long. However, it’s acceptable to write multiple-paragraph annotations if you need to. MLA states that annotations can describe or evaluate sources, or do both. They shouldn’t go into too much depth quoting or discussing minor details from the source, but aim to write about it in broad terms.