Your Name
Mr. Teacher
Assignment Title
5 November 2007
Title Centered
The text of your paper should begin on the line immediately following the title. Notice also there is no gap between the heading on page one and the title. In fact, from the start of your header (above, starting with “Your Name”—and notice it is not “last name first”) until the end of your paper, there should be no gaps—not between header and title, title and first paragraph, nor between any paragraphs within the paper. All margins should be 1”, and the header in the upper right corner should be ½ inch from the top. And, the font should be size 12, Times New Roman.

Parenthetical Notation

MLA uses author-page method of citation. This works well when we have both. However, that is not always the case. Below are some examples of how to cite the source, given different circumstances.

Author and page: author’s name may appear in the sentence itself, or paired with the page number in parentheses. The page number always appears in parentheses.
Ex.:  George Bernard Shaw once wrote that “If all the economists were laid end to end,     they would not reach a conclusion” (23). 
Ex.: “If all the economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion” (Shaw 23).
Notice the parenthetical notation is not included within the quotation marks. Also, the period comes after the notation, never before. If there is no page number associated with the information, it is merely omitted from the parenthetical notation.

No author: use the work’s title, or an abbreviated version of it.
Ex.: “Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else” (The Cynic’s Manual 56). 
Ex.: “Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else” (“The Cynic’s Guide” 56).
Notice that the first example is obviously the name of a book, since it is italicized. Underlining titles of books, magazines, and other sources which require it is also acceptable, as long as consistency is maintained throughout the paper. No mixing and matching, please.

Indirect quotation: use “qtd. in” within the parenthetical notation.
Ex.: Shaw states that “If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience” (qtd. in Smothers 87).

Indirect quotations are those where your source is, in turn, using a quote from elsewhere. This will happen from time to time.

Two authors with the same last name: use first initials, or if they also are the same, use first and last name.
Ex.: While some doctors try to discourage their patients from smoking (J. Johansen 91), others won’t, fearing a backlash from the Undertaker’s Local, No. 8539 (Ervin Johansen 46).

Two different works by the same author: use titles of works, or titles, abbreviated.
Ex.: While early efforts by Johansen had found that doctors try to discourage their patients from smoking (“Look What I Discovered” 91), his later studies concluded that the Undertaker’s Local was too powerful a lobby to mess with (“How Smart Am I?” 46).

The notations to this point have concerned only short quotes. But longer quotes are treated somewhat differently. To be clear, a short quote would be one of four typed lines of prose. Quotes of longer duration require a one-inch indentation from the left and right margins.
Example:
In Roughing It, Twain discusses his first experience with mining for gold:
		
I confess, without shame, that I expected to find masses of silver lying 
all about the ground. I expected to see it glittering in the sun on the
mountain summits. I said nothing about this, for some instinct told me 
that I might possibly have an exaggerated idea about it, and so if I 
betrayed my thought I might bring derision upon myself. Yet I was 
as perfectly satisfied in my own mind as I could be of anything, that 
I was going to gather up, in a day or two, or at furthest a week or two, 
silver enough to make me satisfactorily wealthy--and so my fancy was 
already busy with plans for spending this money. The first opportunity 
that offered, I sauntered carelessly away from the cabin, keeping an 
eye on the other boys, and stopping and contemplating the sky when 
they seemed to be observing me; but as soon as the coast was manifestly 
clear, I fled away as guiltily as a thief might have done and never halted 
till I was far beyond sight and call (150).

Note that quotation marks are surplus to requirements, in the case of long passages. Also, this would all, of course, be double-spaced; however, I am running out of space, and I’d like to get this all on one sheet of paper, if possible.

If it becomes necessary to add words or omit them from a paper, do so in the following fashion.

Adding words: bracket the added words.
Ex.: Jackson writes that “Of those [people whom I have already mentioned], seven are now depressed” (33).
Omitting words: use a bracketed ellipsis to indicate words have been omitted.
	Ex.: Jackson continues to argue that “machines will […] inevitably replace humans” (2).

Useful Links for MLA formatting: 
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_mla.html http://www.csus.edu/owl/index/mla/mla_format.htm