MLA Style Essay Format - Word Tutorial

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>> To set up your document according
to the seventh edition of MLA,

go first up to the Page Layout tab.

Click on it and then click on
the Margins launcher arrow.

In the big drop-down menu that you see,
click on Normal to place a one-inch margin

on all sides -- top, bottom, left, and right.

Next, you're going to choose what
MLA calls an "easily readable font,"

Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri,
stuff like that.

To do that, go up to the Font launcher arrow.

Launch that dialogue box and then in that
big dialogue box choose your font first,

then choose your font style.

Make sure it is Regular.

Then choose your font size, 11 or 12.

Now close that box and the next thing
you're going to do in MLA is be sure

to turn off automatic hyphenation.

To do that, go up to the Page Layout
tab again, but this time click

on the Hyphenation launcher arrow.

And then in that drop-down box, choose None.

Close that box and you've taken
off that automatic hyphenation.

Now you're going to set up your MLA header.

That means the top of the page
and this is the thing that's going

to be repeated on each top of each page.

So go first up to the Insert tab -- click
on the Insert tab and then come over

and click the Header launcher arrow.

Then in the drop-down menu that you
see, you're going to choose Blank.

Now once that's closed, what you want to do is
to move your cursor over to the far right side

of the page until it is directly
in line with the one-inch margin.

That means one inch from the top
and one inch from the right side.

Now what you want to do is
to type in your last name.

Hit the spacebar one time.

Now go back up to that Insert
tab again and this time come over

and click on the Number launcher arrow.

Now you're going to select your number style
and that's going to be Current Position.

And now you see that header --
got your name, space, page number,

and Word is going to automatically
number all of your pages in sequence

with that header of your last name.

Now to exit from the header area, what
you want to do is to double-click either

on the Word header or you can double click
anywhere in the body of the document.

Now what you want to do is
go to the Line Spacing tool.

Click on that and then in the drop-down menu
be sure to select 2.0 or double spacing.

In MLA, the entire document is double-space.

There is nothing else but double
spacing in your MLA document.

No extra lines between any of the elements.

After you have set that double
spacing, what you want to do is go

to the Alignment tool bar and click Left Align.

Now you're ready to type in the
info block on your MLA paper.

You begin first by typing in your name.

Hit Enter one time because you're double spaced.

Now you're going to type in your teacher's name.

Hit Enter.

Gives you a double space.

Then you're going to type
in the name of the course --

all the course information that your
teacher has asked you to supply.

Usually the name and number of -- of the course.

Sometimes, the section.

And then hit Enter.

And then the last thing you're
going to type in is the date.

Hit Enter one more time to give
yourself another double space --

space, and this time go up to the Alignment
toolbar and select Center Alignment.

Now your cursor is exactly in the
center of the page and you're ready

to type in the full title of your paper.

If that title has two parts, be sure
to separate the two parts with a colon.

A couple of other tips about your
title -- whenever you type it in,

be sure to use title capitalization.

And what that means is you capitalize every word
except articles, coordinating conjunctions --

but, and, yet, for, or, nor,
so -- and prepositions.

But, for title capitalization, you always
capitalize the first word and the last word

of a title no matter what they are.

A couple more tips about -- about
your title that you see here.

Be sure not to do anything else to it.

Don't underline it.

Don't boldface it.

Don't put it in quotes.

Don't put it in all caps.

And if you're going to italicize
anything, italicize only the word or words

that you would also italicize
in the body of your paper.

In other words, it's some kind of title of
a work or some other kind of proper noun

that you would italicize
anywhere, including your title.

Okay. The next thing we want to do
after you have typed that title in,

you want to hit enter to
give yourself a double space.

Go back up to that text alignment
toolbar and touch on Left Align.

Now your cursor is all the way over to
the left and you're ready to begin typing

in the body of your -- your paper.

Your first paragraph, of
course, and all your paragraphs

in MLA have to be indented one-half inch.

You have two ways of indenting
the first line of a paragraph.

You can either hit the Tab key one time -- boop.

That gives you a half space because a
half-inch tab is the default in Microsoft Word.

There's another way of setting
your first line indent.

You can go up to the first line
indent triangle which is all the way

up at the top, up above your paper.

Left-click on that triangle and then
drag it over to the half-inch mark

and that will also give you a half-inch
indention for your first paragraph.

Now once you've got that indention set, just
go ahead and type in the body of your paper.

Now remember -- whenever you're using a
computer word processor, it is not necessary

to hit Enter at the end of a line.

You only hit Enter whenever you
have reached the end of a paragraph

and you want to start a new paragraph.

So once you get to the end of a
paragraph, you hit Enter and -- boom --

you're going to start a new paragraph.

You'll see that your line should automatically
indent that half-inch because you set it first.

And then you begin typing your second paragraph,
your third paragraph, etc. Along the way,

if you have a quotation that is longer than
four lines, you're going to have to set

that quotation off by itself into its own block.

What you do is to first hit
Enter to create a new line.

Then you set off, you put in that five

or more line quotation right there
starting on that new first line.

And then highlight that entire block
and then just move that entire block

over using your Indent tool up at --

up at the top, your 'move it to the
right' in this case indent tool.

And that's how you handle block quotations.

Another couple things about block quotations.

Since you're using the block format,

quotation marks are not necessary
for this block quotation.

And do not indent the first
line of a block quotation.

Okay. Let's pretend that you've
typed in the body of your paper.

You're finished now.

The next thing you want to
do is to go back up there

to that Insert tab and this
time select Page Break.

Boom. You're on a new page
because your Work Cited,

the last page of your paper,
must start on a new page.

So go up to the Text Alignment
toolbar, click on Center.

Make sure your cursor is
right in the center and type

in the words Works Cited
in the middle of the page.

Again, don't -- don't boldface those words.

Don't italicize them.

Don't underline them.

It's simply plain Roman text.

Works Cited.

Hit Enter one time gives you a double space.

Go back up to the Text Alignment toolbar.

This time, click on Left Alignment.

Now your cursor is all the way
over to the left and all you have

to do now is start typing
in the text of each source.

Type it in again without
hitting Enter or Return.

Type in all the information.

Let word wrapping conduct itself.

Now for any line that must have hanging
indention, and all lines after the first one

for bibliographic citation
like a work cited page,

all lines after the first one must
be indented a half inch to the right.

What you want to do is to highlight the
line or lines that should be indented.

Now go up to the hanging indention triangle.

Didn't know there was one?

Up at the Word, the bottom triangle up there
is called your "hanging indention triangle."

Left-click on it and drag it across half inch

and that gives you your half-inch
hanging indenture.

Now hit Enter.

Boom. Double space.

Continue typing in all of your sources.

Be sure that there's nothing more
than double space between each line

of the source and each source itself.

Another thing to keep in mind when
you're typing in your sources,

you must follow the MLA formats
for each source type exactly.

Now you can find those source formats
beginning on page 123 of the MLA handbook.

And then also I'm going to be
making a video on those different,

most frequently-used source types and
you can consult that video as well.

So there you go.

Good luck on your MLA paper.