Research 3 Online

MLA: Avoiding Plagiarism and Documenting Sources

Essentials of the MLA Format

Paper Format

Always follow your instructor's directions!

• One inch margins on all sides
• Double spaced
• A header on each page in the upper right-hand corner, half (1/2) inch below the top edge that includes:
• • Your last name
  • The page number

Click here to see an example of a paper correctly formatted in the MLA Format

 

First Page

• No title page
• In the upper left-hand corner provide:
  • Your name
  • Your instructor's name
  • The course
  • The date
• Center the title of your paper in the next line

Your first page should look like the picture below. Click on the image for a larger view.

Works Cited Page

The Works Cited page lists all the sources you used (or cited) in your paper.

• Begin "Works Cited" on a new sheet of paper
• Title it Works Cited in the center of the first line
• Arrange entries in alphabetical order
• Begin each entry at the left margin and indent all additional lines of the entry by a half (1/2) inch. This is called Hanging Indentation. Each entry will look something like this:

Berg, Orley. Treasures in the Sand: What Archaeology Tells Us About the

Bible. New York: Pacific, 1993.

Your Work Cited page should look like the picture below. Click on the image for a larger view.

 

Quotations

When you use somebody else's words, you are quoting them. Short quotes must be inside quotation marks. For example:Victor Hugo once said, "He who opens a school door, closes a prison."

Block Quotations

A quotation longer than 4 lines must be put into a block quote.

• NO quotation marks
• Start on a new line
• Indent 1 inch from margin

For example:

According to W.E.B. DuBois,

Of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for 5,000 years, the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental... The freedom to learn... has been bought by bitter sacrifice. And whatever we may think of the curtailment of other civil rights, we should fight to the last ditch to keep open the right to learn, the right to have examined in our schools not only what we believe, but what we do not believe; not only what our leaders say, but what the leaders of other groups and nations, and the leaders of other centuries have said. We must insist upon this to give our children the fairness of a start which will equip them with such an array of facts and such an attitude toward truth that they can have a real chance to judge what the world is and what its greater minds have thought it might be.

 See the picture below to see what this will look like in your paper. Click on the image for a larger view.

Punctuation

For a review of correct punctuation, visit Robert Harris' "Punctuation Reminders" at www.virtualsalt.com/punctu8.htm.

Activity

Click on the DragNDrop Activity below to match the MLA guideline with the item it refers to.

   

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