MLA Style Cheat Sheet

Formatting

ü       Margins should be one inch on top, bottom, left, and right.  Do not justify the text (make it even on both sides): keep it aligned at the left.

ü       You DO NOT need a title page; on the first page of the paper, place your name, the instructor’s name, the course title, and the date on separate lines on the left-hand side of the page, and then center your title on the line below that.

ü       You should put your last name and the page number in the top right of each page (you can do this using the insert page number and header functions of MS Word).

ü       Double-space throughout the paper; indent paragraphs ½ inch from the left margin, and do not add extra lines of space above or below the title of the paper or between paragraphs.

Citing

ü       All quoted and paraphrased material must be cited in the text with a parenthetical in-text citation.  See A Trouble-Shooting Guide for rules about citation.

ü       All texts that you cite should be noted on a works cited page at the end of the paper.

ü       MLA Style does not use notes for the purposes of citation, though you can use content-related notes should you choose to do so. 

Bibliographic Citation Formats for Unconventional Texts:

An Article from a Website:

Silverman, Jason.  “2001: A Re-Release Odyssey.”  Wired News 13 October 2001.  20 March 2002 <http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,47342,00.html>

A Television or Radio Program:

List the title of the episode or segment, followed by the title of the program italicized.  Then identify the network, followed by the local station, city, and the broadcast date.

“Stirred.”  The West Wing.  NBC.  WWBT, Richmond, VA.  3 Apr. 2002.

A Personal Interview:

Heinemann, Alan.  Personal interview.  14 Feb. 2001.

A Film:

Byington, Bob, dir.  Olympia.  With Jason Andrews, Carmen Nogales, and Damien Young.  King Pictures, 1998.

A Sound Recording from a Compact Disc, Tape, or Record:

The Asylum Street Spankers.  Spanks for the Memories.  Spanks-a-Lot Records, 1996.

(If you are citing a song, you would put the song title in quotation marks before the italicized title of the album and after the name of the singer/band.)

A Work of Art in a Museum:

Klee, Paul.  A Page from the Golden Book.  Kunstmuseum, Bern.

A Performance:

R.E.M.  Walnut Creek Auditorium.  Raleigh, N.C.  27 August 1999.

An Advertisement:

Absolut.  Advertisement.  Time 17 Dec. 2002: 12.