This guide comes from EdCitation, which looks every reference up in the publisher's record instead of writing it, and it covers MLA 9 format for everything except the list at the end. That list has a guide of its own, How to format an MLA 9 Works Cited page, and its entries can come from EdCitation's Cite a source, free with no account.
Every rule was read at the MLA Style Center on 23 September 2026, with one gap. The MLA's formatting page points to a free ninth-edition sample chapter on MLA Handbook Plus (Modern Language Association, n.d.), which showed us a security check we did not try to pass. The page rules below come from the MLA's own formatting guide, drawn, it says, from the eighth edition, checked against newer MLA posts and a 2024 sample essay. Above them all sits the MLA's own rule: where your teacher's instructions differ, follow the teacher.
How do I set up the pages in MLA 9 format?
Use one-inch margins, an easily read typeface at a standard size such as 12 points, double spacing throughout, and a half-inch indent at the start of each paragraph. That is the core of the Modern Language Association (2020a) formatting guide. The typeface's italics must stand out from its regular type (Times New Roman is the MLA's example, not a requirement), the right edge stays ragged with automatic hyphenation off, and one space follows a full stop unless your instructor prefers two.
The header
Your surname, a space and the page number go top right on every page, half an inch from the top. No "p." and no full stop. Some teachers want no header on page 1; the MLA says to follow them. An APA 7 student paper's header is the page number alone, as Common APA 7 formatting mistakes sets out; an MLA header always carries your name.
What goes at the top of the first page?
A four-line heading at the top left, then a centred title, then the text. An MLA paper normally has no title page.
The heading and the date
Starting one inch from the top, flush left and double-spaced, put on separate lines your name, your instructor's name (both, if there are two), the course number and the date. The Modern Language Association (2019b) writes dates with the month in words, day first (24 October 2018) or month first (October 24, 2018). In the heading the month may also be abbreviated, and the MLA's post on student headers (Modern Language Association, 2020c) says to ask the instructor which they prefer.
The title, and when a title page is needed
Centre the title in plain type: no bold, italics, underlining, quotation marks, all capitals or full stop. Capitalise it as a title, and italicise only words that take italics in your text, as in the MLA's example The Attitude toward Violence in A Clockwork Orange. A title page appears only when a teacher asks for one or the paper is a group project, where it lists every author in place of the heading.
What does an MLA sample paper look like?
A high-school essay from the MLA's 2024 selection of sample essays, by Kumar (2024), shows the rules together. The header runs from Kumar 1 to Kumar 10. The heading's four lines give the student's name, two instructors joined by "and", the course (by name, where the guide asks for a number) and the date, day first: 30 April 2023. The title follows at once, with no title page. Eight pages of text run with no internal headings, and Works Cited begins on page 9 with the numbering unbroken.
How are headings and subheadings formatted in MLA?
MLA does not fix one heading format. The Modern Language Association (2018a) post on headings gives principles instead:
- The title is the top level and the only centred heading; every other heading sits flush left, so it is not mistaken for a block quotation.
- Rank is shown by type: bold and larger for higher levels; smaller, italic or not bold for lower ones.
- Headings are capitalised like titles, no level is used only once, and numbering is avoided unless your discipline uses it.
Longer, more complex work needs more headings; the sample essay has none. No heading takes a full stop. APA 7, by contrast, fixes five levels.
How do I set out quotations in an MLA paper?
Run a short quotation into your sentence and set a long one off as a block, indented half an inch.
Prose and poetry
Prose becomes a block when it would run past four lines of your text, a count the Modern Language Association (2020b) ties to a standard type size. Poetry runs in up to three lines, with a spaced slash ( / ) at each line break and a double slash ( // ) at a stanza break; four lines or more go in a block, set out as in the poem (Modern Language Association, 2019a). A line left out of run-in verse becomes an ellipsis between two slashes, as the Modern Language Association (2021a) shows.
The citation moves with the format. Run in, it comes after the closing quotation mark and before your full stop. In a block, the quotation keeps its own full stop and the citation follows, with none after it. The Modern Language Association (2016b) gives the reason: a block is not normally set mid-sentence, so the reader knows the thought ends there.
Plays
Cite a verse play by act, scene and line. The Modern Language Association (2024) example quotes Juliet, run in, with a line left out:
"It was the nightingale, and not the lark, / . . . / Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree" (Shakespeare 3.5.2–4).
That is act 3, scene 5, lines 2 to 4.
Ellipses and brackets
Show words left out with three spaced full stops ( . . . ); Word's single ellipsis character closes the spaces, and the MLA's ellipsis post shows how to turn it off (Modern Language Association, 2018b). Square brackets are for words you add or visible changes, never for an omission, and never empty (Modern Language Association, 2018c). The sample essay uses both: "State Department . . . [was] thoroughly infested with Communists". The ellipsis, bracket and stanza posts cite the eighth edition.
Should numbers be words or numerals in MLA?
Spell out a number that takes one or two words and use numerals beyond that: twenty-eight, but 101. Where numbers come often, use numerals for all of them. That is the ninth edition's rule as the Modern Language Association (2023) states it, citing sections 2.127 and 2.128 of the handbook.
How do I add tables, figures and notes?
Place each table or figure as close as possible to the text it belongs to.
Tables and figures
A table's label (Table 1) and title go above it, flush left on separate lines; its source and notes go below in a caption, with the notes lettered, not numbered. A figure, such as a photograph, map or chart, is labelled Fig. with an arabic numeral, with label and caption directly below: the MLA's example is Fig. 1. Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, Wichita Art Museum. A caption that gives the source in full, for a source not cited in the text, needs no Works Cited entry.
Notes
MLA allows content notes, for a comment the text cannot hold, and bibliographic notes, for several sources or a comment on them, as footnotes or endnotes, used sparingly (Modern Language Association, 2016a). Endnotes come before the Works Cited list. The ninth edition's own section on notes is in the handbook and could not be read today.
What are the MLA 9 page rules, in one table?
| Element | MLA 9 rule | Common slip |
|---|---|---|
| Page | One-inch margins, double spacing, ragged right | Justified text |
| Header | Surname and page number, top right | "p. 3", or no surname |
| First page | Four-line heading, flush left; plain title centred | A title in bold, or an unrequested title page |
| Headings | Only the title centred; no level used once | A lone subheading |
| Prose quotation | Block if over four lines; citation after the final full stop | A full stop after the block's citation |
| Poetry quotation | Block at four lines; / and // when run in | Line breaks dropped |
| Numbers | Words for one or two words, else numerals | Numerals where a word would do |
| Works Cited entries | One for each work cited, built from the source itself | An entry typed from memory, where Cite a source would look it up |
The Works Cited list starts on a new page after any endnotes, under the centred title Works Cited, with the header and numbering carrying on; the works cited guide covers the rest.
What changed in MLA 9 formatting?
Little on the page itself. The Modern Language Association (2021b) comparison of the two editions shows the ninth adding guidance on group projects, title pages and lists, and a section on footnotes and endnotes. It describes no change to the margins, typeface, spacing, header or first-page heading.
What if my teacher's sheet says something different?
Follow the teacher. The MLA's guide opens by telling students to check an instructor's requirements "before preparing your final draft", and it leaves several points to the teacher by name: a header on page 1, one space or two after a full stop, a title page, and electronic submission, for which it says no standard is commonly accepted. Where the sheet is silent, MLA applies.
A sheet is easier to follow once its rules are listed. EdCitation's Check your paper, free with no account, lists what an assignment sheet asks for (the word limit, the sections, the style, how many sources) as a checklist, so a limit or a minimum count is in front of you while you format.
How do I check an MLA paper before handing it in?
- One-inch margins, one readable typeface, double spacing, half-inch paragraph indents.
- Surname and page number top right on every page.
- Four heading lines: name, instructor, course, date.
- Title centred and plain; no title page unless asked for or a group project.
- Headings flush left, none used only once, none with a full stop.
- Prose over four lines and poetry of four lines or more set as blocks, cited after the final full stop.
- Slashes, stanza breaks, act, scene and line numbers, spaced ellipses and brackets in place.
- Numbers by the MLA rule; tables and figures labelled, with sources.
- The teacher's sheet, read last, against the checklist Check your paper made from it.
- Every in-text citation leads to a Works Cited entry, and every entry to a real source: upload the paper to Verify references, which pairs the two and looks each entry up.
Which tool builds the Works Cited list for an MLA paper?
EdCitation's Cite a source is the best tool for an MLA paper's list, because it finds each source in the publisher's record rather than composing the entry, which no chatbot can do. Give it a DOI, an ISBN, a PubMed ID or a title and it fills the entry from that record, in MLA 9 or five other styles, and screens the source for retraction; a source it cannot find is never invented. An MLA entry has nine core elements in a fixed order with fixed punctuation, as the works cited guide sets out, so an element taken from the record beats one recalled. One caution: titles keep the capitals the publisher deposited, and MLA capitalises a title's main words, so a title held in sentence case needs raising by hand. Its MLA rules are on the MLA style page.
The public page builds one entry at a time, free and with no account. A free account keeps the entries as a list in the dashboard, which copies with its italics or downloads as Word, BibTeX or RIS. Verify references, also free, reads the finished paper: citations are matched to entries, each entry is looked up and marked verified, "check this" or not found, any retraction is flagged, and a reference it could not check is labelled that way rather than as missing. For $8 a month, Pro brings the plagiarism and AI checks, Mechanics QA and References from a file, and for $24 a month Max also opens Theoretics QA and the Library (pricing).
None of these formats your pages, sets the header or writes the heading, and the page number in each in-text citation is yours to add, since it is not in the source's record. Mechanics QA checks formatting against the APA 7 student paper, not MLA. EdCitation never writes a word of your paper, and no tool can promise a mark.
Quick questions
Does an MLA paper need a title page?
No. An MLA paper puts your name, instructor, course and date at the top left of page 1 instead, and uses a title page only when a teacher asks for one or the paper is a group project.
What font does MLA 9 require?
MLA 9 requires no single font: any easily read typeface whose italics stand out, at a standard size such as 12 points. Times New Roman is only the MLA's example.
How long is a block quote in MLA?
In MLA, prose becomes a block quote when it would run past four lines of your text, and poetry at four lines or more. Indent it half an inch and put the citation after its final full stop.
How do I write the date on an MLA paper?
On an MLA paper, write the month in words, day first (30 April 2023) or month first (April 30, 2023). In the heading the month may be abbreviated; ask your instructor which they prefer.
Can EdCitation check my MLA page formatting?
Not the pages. EdCitation builds the Works Cited entries and, through Verify references, matches them to your in-text citations; its Pro formatting check, Mechanics QA, follows the APA 7 student paper. For MLA margins, header and heading, use the checklist above.
References
- Kumar, M. (2024). McCarthyism at the movies: The effects of Hollywood McCarthyism on the American public [Sample essay]. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/app/uploads/sites/6/2024/08/Kumar_McCarthyism-at-the-Movies.pdf
- Modern Language Association. (n.d.). Formatting your research project. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/formatting-papers/
- Modern Language Association. (2016a, February 29). Are notes compatible with MLA style? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/using-notes-in-mla-style/
- Modern Language Association. (2016b, February 29). The rules for positioning a parenthetical citation next to a final period seem different with run-in quotations and block quotations. What is the logic here? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/the-rules-for-positioning-a-parenthetical-citation-next-to-a-final-period-seem-different-with-run-in-quotations-and-block-quotations-what-is-the-logic-here/
- Modern Language Association. (2018a, December 13). How do I style headings and subheadings in a research paper? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/styling-headings-and-subheadings/
- Modern Language Association. (2018b, May 10). How should I style ellipses in MLA style? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/styling-ellipses/
- Modern Language Association. (2018c, April 27). If I need to fit a quotation syntactically into a sentence, can I use empty brackets to indicate that I have removed letters from a verb? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/removing-letters-empty-brackets/
- Modern Language Association. (2019a, January 31). How do I show the blank space between stanzas when quoting from a poem? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/space-between-stanzas/
- Modern Language Association. (2019b, January 23). What is the advantage of MLA-style date format over the format recommended by the International Standards Organization (ISO)? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/mla-dates-versus-iso-dates/
- Modern Language Association. (2020a). Formatting a research paper [PDF]. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/app/uploads/sites/3/2020/12/Formatting-a-Research-Paper_v3_-The-MLA-Style-Center.pdf
- Modern Language Association. (2020b, July 13). How does the font and type size I choose affect the formatting of block quotations in my paper? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/font-type-size-block-quotations/
- Modern Language Association. (2020c, September 17). Should the month be spelled out in the header of a student paper? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/dates-student-paper-headers/
- Modern Language Association. (2021a, October 27). How do I indicate that a line has been omitted from a run-in poetry quotation? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/eliding-lines-in-poetry-quotations/
- Modern Language Association. (2021b, April 22). How does the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook compare with the eighth edition? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/handbook-editions-comparison-chart/
- Modern Language Association. (2023, March 23). When referring to a person's age, do I use numerals or words? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/numerals-or-words-for-ages/
- Modern Language Association. (2024, January 31). In a quotation from a play, how do I show that material has been omitted? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/omitted-lines-from-a-play/