MLA Format Essay
An MLA format essay is the style most commonly used to write academic essays and assignments. Generally used by students of Arts and Humanities courses, MLA format essays are easy to learn and write. MLA format essay writing is taught to students early in their academic lives. An MLA format essay has a basic structure and composition. The formatting begins with the first page of the MLA essay which is the title page.
Students are required to write their name and surname on the first pages followed by their course number and the date. After this they will need to insert the name of the instructor. All this information will be on the top left hand corner of the MLA format essay. The header of an MLA format essay has the student’s last name and page number, indented right. This is simple to do and most MS word programs have this function.
The title of the essay should be centred, one line below the personal information. The title of an MLA format essay should clearly indicate the topic and main theme of the essay and should be concise and clear. Some students prefer to use uppercase for their title; however, some instructors do not like the use of capital letters for titles, and students should carefully consider all instructions while writing their MLA format essays. The common font used for writing MLA format essays is 12 point Times New Roman or Ariel font. MLA essays are double spaced with an inch margins on all sides, right left, top and bottom. All new paragraphs are indented to about 5 spaces.
One of the most essential aspects of MLA format essays is the use of citations – in-text and bibliographic entries. Parenthetical citations are inserted after the sentence in brackets with the last name of the author and the page number of the text or publication referred to. Unlike APA format essays, MLA format essays do not have the year of publication in the parenthetical or in-text citations. A comma separates the author’s last name from the page number of the reference used.
The use of appropriate citation style and technique is one of the most essential and distinguishing aspects of MLA format essays. These essays are simple to cite and write, unlike some other essays which have difficult foot notes and end notes. As such, MLA format essays are the most desirable form of essay for writing essays and academic assignments. All MLA format essays should have a bibliography page at the end of the essay in which all sources and references used have to be listed in alphabetical order.