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MLA Citation Guide 9th Edition: Additional MLA Resources

MLA Citation Guide 9th Edition

MLA Formatting Using Google Docs

  • Open Google Docs and select a standard font style like Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman. 
  • Next, increase the font size to 12.
  • Go over to the line spacing options and select double.
  • Click on Insert. Headers and footers. Click on header. Then select Options. Page numbers. 
  • Leave this set up as it is with the header starting on the first page  with the number one. Click on Apply. You'll see the number one appears in  the upper left corner, but we need it the upper  right corner, so click on the right align option. 
  • move your cursor in front of the number one, and type your last name and then put a space. Now your header is set up so that your last name and the page number. 
  • Now we're going to put in our heading  for our paper. This is left aligned. 
  • Include your name on one the first line, your instructor's name on the second line, the name of your course on the third line, and the date on the fourth line, in day month year format. Next, we'll put the title of our paper. Click on center align, and type the  title of your paper in Title case. You don't want it to be bold, italicized,  or underlined.
  • Once you've entered your title,  put your cursor at the end of the title,  hit return, and then select left align. Hit tab, because you need to have each new paragraph indented.  Then you can start typing your paper.
  • Another feature of MLA formatting  is that there's only one space after  punctuation. For example, after a period at the end of the sentence there's only  one space before the word of the next sentence. 
  • Also note that I'm including my in-text citations.  You'll have those throughout your paper. At the end of your paper, you'll create a Works Cited page that lists all of those references. To get more details, go to the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University.  
  • You can find this easily by  Googling OWL at Purdue MLA.

Introduction to Citation Styles MLA 9th ed. - CSU Dominguez Hills