Craig 1
J. P. CraigProfessor Teacher-Person
Class Name 10:002
25 March 1969
A Fake Paper on MLA FormatYour paper should be in a proportional serif font like Times or Palatino. It should not be in a sans-serif font like Arial or Geneva. It should not be in a monospaced (nonproportional) font like Courier. Don’t double-space after periods; proportional fonts do that for you.
Your header should include your last name and the page number; it should be located about one-half inch from the top of the page. To create your header in Word, choose “Header and Footer” under the View menu. Click in the header that appears on your document. Select right alignment in the “Alignment and Spacing” section of the Formatting Palette. Type your last name, and then select “Page Numbers...” under the Insert menu. Click the Okay button. If this doesn’t work for you, try your word processor’s help function.
A book says to “document quotes with the author’s last name and the page number” (Author 12). Sometimes “a quote will contain a ‘quote’ within itself” (34). If a series of quotes is by the same author in the same text, then just put the numbers after the first time you use the name. Infrequently quotes are
longer than three lines. When this is true, indent them one inch from the left margin only. Then document them after the period. Don’t overuse long quotes. Notice that this block quote is still double-spaced. (Smith 56)
The paragraph should continue at the left margin, as this line shows.
The next paragraph is back to the normal one-half inch indent for each new paragraph. Other than these exceptions, the margins of the paper should be one-inch all the way around. This is in space-and-a-half, which I prefer; the actual MLA requirement is double-spaced pages.* It is my intention to sit down and play video games for several hours Finally, sometimes gross stuff can be funny. In conclusion, I, Kyle “The Yellow Dart,” blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
*Note: For the purposes of this web site, the spacing and indentation in this document has been changed.
--The Writing Center thanks J. P. Craig for contributing this handout.