MLA format (9th edition)

Everything your instructor checks in an MLA paper, from the one-inch margins to the last Works Cited entry, following the MLA Handbook, 9th edition.

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Source type

Authors (or an organisation)

Page title

Website name

Publisher (if different from site)

Publication date (leave blank if none)

URL

Date you accessed it (MLA/Harvard, or when there’s no date)

Fix title capitalisation for the style (sentence case for APA/Harvard, title case for MLA/Chicago)

Works Cited entry · MLA 9th edition

Your citation appears here as you type, set exactly as it will look in your paper.

In-text citation

Page

Fill in the author and date to see the in-text version.

Page setup

Margins: 1 inch on all sides.
Font: a legible font such as Times New Roman, 12 pt. Italics for titles of long works.
Spacing: double-spaced throughout, including quotes and Works Cited. No extra space between paragraphs.
Indent: first line of each paragraph 0.5 inch.
Header: your surname and page number, right-aligned, 0.5 inch from the top: Okafor 3.

First page: no title page

MLA papers don’t use a title page unless your instructor asks. At the top left of page 1, on separate double-spaced lines: your name, your instructor’s name, the course, and the date (14 September 2026). Then centre the title in title case: no bold, no underline, no quotation marks.

In-text citations

Author and page, no comma: (Kahneman 79). If the author is named in your sentence, give only the page. See the in-text citation generator.

Works Cited

Start a new page titled Works Cited (centred, no bold). Alphabetise the entries, double-space them, and use a 0.5-inch hanging indent. Details in how to make a Works Cited page.

MLA 9th edition

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

In-text: (Kahneman 79) or Kahneman (79)

Questions students ask

Is MLA format double-spaced?

Yes: everything, including the heading, block quotes and Works Cited, with no extra space between paragraphs or entries.

What changed in MLA 9?

MLA 9 (2021) kept MLA 8’s core elements, and added guidance on inclusive language, more examples, a fuller treatment of notes, and optional elements such as access dates.