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Jeff Norem
Professor name
English 130*/section 3****
Date (MLA requires the following format: 16 January 2007)
Required MLA Form for All Essay Assignments in Microsoft Word
This essay addresses the standard MLA (Modern Language Association) form for
academic essays. This is the form that is always used in English classes and is often used in
other courses; it is the form that will be used for all essay and homework assignments in this
class. Using the following instructions will provide a quick, simple way to format all
writing assignments in MLA style using Microsoft Word. These steps will also work for
newer versions of Microsoft Works.
Once in Microsoft Word, before making the following setting changes, be sure to start
with a new blank document (the small icon on the toolbar that looks like a page) to eliminate the
risk that any previous settings on an existing document will affect the new settings. Also, to
ensure the setting changes are saved, click save (the small icon that looks like a disk) on the
toolbar after each change is made.
MLA requires particular text settings. First, set the line spacing to double-space. Use the
Line Spacing tool (it has arrows pointing up and down) on the toolbar to set the spacing to 2.0.
The correct MLA essay should have double-spacing throughout – including the heading, title,
and body of the essay. Use the font and font size tools on the toolbar to set the font to Times New
Roman and the font size to 12 (Microsoft Word defaults to a Times New Roman, but to a font
size of 11, so use the toolbar to change the font size for the entire essay).
A cover page is not required in this class, so this is how the first page of all essays and
homework assignments should look. The writer’s last name appears as the header in the upper
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right hand corner, ½ inch from the top. To do this, click View on the toolbar and then Header
and Footer. Then, to align the last name to the right hand side of the page, click Align Right
(using the alignment tools on the toolbar), and type in the last name (the font of the header must
also be Times New Roman and the font size must be 12). To format the correct page numbers
(1,2,3 etc.), click on the tool bar Format Page Numbers icon, and then click OK. Make sure that
the cursor is flush right and one space to the right of the last name. Now, click on Insert page
number; the page number should appear and be flush to the right margin with the last name
preceding it by one space.
Now simply click Close.
This header should appear (with
appropriate, continuous page numbers) on each page of the essay.
In the upper left hand corner, MLA requires a heading, which includes the student’s full
name, the professor’s name, the course number (and, in this class, the section number) and date
(using the format indicated in this essay’s heading), all Aligned Left. The title is always typed
just below this and is Centered. These headings appear on the first page only.
MLA requires that all margins (except for the header) be set to 1 inch. Since Word
defaults the side margins to 1.25 inches, these will have to be changed to 1.0 inch. Click File on
the toolbar, then Page Setup, then Margins to make the adjustments. Also, the header margin
should be ½ inch from the top (Word defaults the header margin to ½ inch, so you shouldn’t
have to worry about it). To indent for new paragraphs, simply hit the Tab key, and Word will
automatically tab the text ½ inch from the left margin to start the paragraph.
Finally, because all essay assignments will call for a required range of number of words,
always check the word count. To do this, click the Tools option on the toolbar and then click
Word Count. A typical MLA essay first page has approximately 310 words; a typical full page
(other than the first page, which includes the heading) has approximately 370 words. In other
words, a typical 2 page MLA essay has about 680 words (this 3 page essay has 1,029 words).
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When writing a Works Cited page (the last page of a research essay) or a Bibliography,
list all bibliographic resource entries in alphabetical order and do not number the entries. The
first line of each source entry should be aligned with the left margin; all subsequent lines should
be ½ inch from the left margin. The indent arrows on the ruler at the top of the page can be
adjusted to achieve this: leave the top arrow all the way to the left and, with the mouse, move the
bottom arrow to the ½ inch position. This will automatically set the margins correctly for
bibliographic entries.
When listing electronic sources, be sure to remove the blue color and underlines from
the URL’s of all Internet entries; Microsoft Word will want to make these URL’s hyperlinks. To
do this, with the mouse, right click on the URL and select Hyperlinks. Then, move the cursor
down and select the option, Remove Hyperlink.
The URL will now have a normal text
appearance. Be sure to include angle brackets (required by MLA) before and after (< and >) all
URL’s, since the above step will erase them if they have already been typed in.
Following these simple guidelines will ensure a properly formatted MLA-style essay.
Once a document is set up using these steps, it can be saved and used every time a homework
assignment or essay is written. Therefore, these steps will only have to be followed once to
create a template for all MLA assignments. Each time a new assignment is written, the writer
can simply click on File, move down to save as, and rename the new assignment. By doing this,
all assignments written during the semester can be saved on a computer, disc, or flash drive.
Hopefully, these simple steps will help save time and remove the guesswork from setting up
MLA-style homework and essay assignments.