Prairie High School MLA Guidelines

Basic Rules

• Begin Works Cited on a separate page at the end of a paper. It should have the same margins as the rest of your paper.  The font should be the same style and size as the rest of your paper.
• Label the page Works Cited and center the words at the top of the page.  (Do not underline the words Works Cited or put them in quotation marks.)
• Double space all entries, but do not skip spaces between the citations.  All lines after the first are indented five spaces (hanging indent).  Arrange all citations in alphabetical order.
• List page numbers of sources efficiently. If you refer to a journal article that appeared on pages 333 through 338, list the page numbers on your Works Cited page as 333-38.
• When citing an article that was originally issued in print form but retrieved from an online database, provide enough information so that the reader can locate the article either in its original print form or be able to retrieve it from the online database.

Capitalization and Punctuation

• Capitalize each word in the titles of articles, books, etc., but do not capitalize articles (a, an, the), short prepositions, or conjunctions unless one is the first word of the title or subtitle.  Examples: Gone with the Wind, The Art of War, There Is Nothing Left to Lose
• Use italics or underlining for titles of larger works (books and magazines) and quotation marks for titles of shorter works (articles and poems).