MLA Format in LaTeX: Template and Style Guide

MLA Format in LaTeX

Create properly formatted MLA papers using LaTeX for clean, consistent academic documents.

What is MLA Format?

Modern Language Association (MLA) style is used in humanities:

- English and literature - Cultural studies - Languages - Philosophy

Basic MLA Requirements

Page Setup

- 1-inch margins on all sides - 12pt Times New Roman font - Double-spaced throughout - Header with last name and page number - First page: name, instructor, course, date

LaTeX Preamble

\documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry} \usepackage{times} \usepackage{setspace} \doublespacing

Header Setup

MLA requires your last name and page number in the upper right:

\usepackage{fancyhdr} \pagestyle{fancy} \fancyhf{} \rhead{YourLastName \thepage} \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}

First Page Header

No separate title page in MLA. Start with:

Your Name Professor's Name Course Name Day Month Year

Title (centered, not bold or underlined)

\noindent Your Name\\ Professor Smith\\ English 101\\ 15 December 2025

\begin{center} Your Paper Title \end{center}

In-Text Citations

MLA uses parenthetical author-page citations:

According to Smith, "quoted text" (42).

In LaTeX with biblatex-mla:

\usepackage[style=mla]{biblatex} \autocite[42]{smith2024}

Works Cited Page

The bibliography in MLA is called "Works Cited":

\newpage \begin{center} Works Cited \end{center}

\printbibliography[heading=none]

Block Quotations

Quotes longer than 4 lines:

\begin{quote} Long quotation here, indented one inch from left margin. No quotation marks. Citation after period (Author 45). \end{quote}

Titles in MLA

- Italicize: books, journals, websites, films - Quotation marks: articles, chapters, poems, songs

In LaTeX:

\textit{Book Title}

"Article Title"

Section Headings (Optional)

MLA allows optional headings:

Level 1: Bold, centered Level 2: Bold, left-aligned Level 3: Bold, italicized, left-aligned

Lists in MLA

For numbered or bulleted lists:

\begin{enumerate} \item First point \item Second point \end{enumerate}

Tables and Figures

Label tables above, figures below:

\begin{table}[h] \caption{Table 1: Description} ...table content... \end{table}

Complete MLA Template Structure

\documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage[margin=1in]{geometry} \usepackage{times} \usepackage{setspace} \usepackage{fancyhdr} \usepackage[style=mla]{biblatex}

\doublespacing \pagestyle{fancy} \fancyhf{} \rhead{LastName \thepage}

\begin{document} ...content... \end{document}

MLA vs. Other Styles

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