Tips on Essay Writing in MLA Style

MLA or Modern language association is a widely accepted format of writing essays and research papers. This style of writing is most commonly used in arts and humanities essays and research papers. There are several advantages of using MLA style:

•    MLA style prescribes a system to the authors for referencing the sources via parenthetical citation in the essays.
•    With a robust referencing system MLA style helps the authors in building up their credibility as their writing can be tracked back to the source material.
•    As the works of the writers can be tracked back to the original, using this style in their writings authors can effectively ward off any false accusations of plagiarism.

Generic MLA style guidelines are as follows:

•    The essay should be written on 8"x11" white paper.
•    Recommend font is Times New Roman with a font size of 12 pt. The text should be double spaced.
•    Leave one space after every punctuation mark (periods, question marks, colon, and comma).
•    Leave a margin space of 1" on every side of paper.
•    Indent the first line of the paragraph 1" from the left margin to mark the beginning of a paragraph
•    Restrict the use of italics and underlining to emphasize certain points in your essay.
•    Create a header on the upper right margin of the title page to number the page.

•    Create a title page for your essay only if it is specifically requested by the teacher.
•    Mention your name, instructors name, the course and date in the same order on the upper left hand corner of the first page.
•    Write the title in Title case, not in All CAPS. Put the title in the center of the page. Do not put the title in quotation marks, period or underline it.
•    Use italics or quotation marks when referring to someone else´s work on your title page.
•    Create a header on the upper right margin of the title page. The header should include your last name, and page number in Arabic numerals. If your research guide doesn´t want you to put a number on the title page then start number the rest of the document from Page 2. Do not put period after the page number.
•    Put a double space between the title of the page and first line of the text.
•     In MLA writing style when somebody else´s work is cited with the text of the essay the cited material is mentioned in a "signal phrase" which includes author´s name. Mention the page number of the cited work from which the information is drawn in a bracket after the signal phrase.
•    The works cited list consists of the list of sources, which have been referred to write the essay, enlisted on a separate page after the end of the essay.

Knowledge of MLA style of writing can be very helpful for research scholars and writers. To understand the MLA style in depth there are various helpful resources available on the internet and in reference libraries.