- Ironwood Ridge High School
- MLA-8 Basic Formatting Guidelines
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LINK to OWL @ Purdue Writing LAB:
QUICK OVERVIEW of Common Guidelines:
MLA-8 Standard for English Basic Paper Formatting Guidelines:
- blank white paper
- NO TITLE PAGE
- Double-spaced, remove the extra lines between paragraphs, entries and sections
- 1" margins, 1/2" margin on the top to the header line
- Times New Roman font, 12 point
- TAB paragraphs, remove extra lines between paragraphs
- HEADING in upper left corner (4 lines, double-spaced): Full name, date, period, assignment
- HEADER in upper right corner (1/2" margin from the top): last name page number [EX: Miller 2]
- HEADER required for page one through last page, including Works Cited page (if required) for all assignments more than one page in length
- If the assignment is titled, place the title in plain text and centered above the document
- IN-TEXT CITATIONS
- At the very minimum the title of a work cited should be embedded into the writing.
- The standard encourages writers to embed information about citations into the writing as context and explanation. Required information that is embedded does not need to be reiterated in the end-text citation.
- BOOKS: author's last name page number(s) EX: (Steinbeck 43). *End punctuation
- POEMS/BALLADS/SONGS: poet's last name line number(s) EX: (Dickinson 3-7).
- PLAYS: playwright's last name part scene line numbers(s) EX: (Shakespeare I:v:4-9). or (Wilde 1:2:12-19).
- Film Media: Director/creator year released minutes played EX: (Nolan 2012 54:00-56:34).
- ELECTRONIC SOURCES: please refer to the Electronic Sources section on OWL at Purdue university.
- WORKS CITED PAGE - REFER TO OWL AT PURDUE UNIVERSITY for entry specifics
- All formatting above applies
- title as Works Cited in plain text above the entries
- Entries are placed in alphabetical order and constructed per MLA-8 guidelines (refer to OWL at Purdue University)
- Entries are reverse-indent and should look like a hanging file; first line at the 1" margin, all subsequent lines reverse tab indent
- Entries have end punctuation (a period)
- Delete "<http:>" and remove hyperlink from URL
- Books, films, TV shows, art, plays, etc... should be cited as such - DO NOT CITE A WEBSITE for a non-electronic source
- Remove extra lines between entries
- CITING FILM MEDIA IN THIS CLASS
- The information required to cite a quote or details from a TV show or film is:
- Title of film/series and scene/episode the director or creator and year released - some, if not all, of this information can be embedded into the writing. Whatever information is not embedded in the writing needs to be placed in parenthetical end-text citation in this order (director/creator, title, scene/episode title, year released).
- NOTE: the new standard for film/TV citations is to embed most of the descriptive information (titles, director/creator, year) into the writing and end-text cite the actual minutes played for the citation from the original source. EX: (1:21-1:27) STUDENTS WHO CITE FILM MEDIA TO THIS STANDARD WILL RECEIVE EXTRA CREDIT.
- The information required to cite a quote or details from a TV show or film is:
- OBSERVE RULES FOR TITLES
- For long works, titles are italicized only (underlined if handwritten) EX: books, films, TV shows, paintings, albums, journals, websites
- For short works, titles are put in quotation marks (same for handwritten) EX: chapter titles, scenes, episodes, poems, song, articles, pages from a website
- Refrain from using quotation marks for emphasis. IF emphasis is absolutely necessary, use italics (sparingly). NO AIR QUOTES.