The Modern Language Association publishes guidelines for formatting student and professional work in the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. MLA style is most commonly used in liberal arts disciplines such as history and literature. MLA style offers guidance for most aspects of formatting a paper, from the correct way to cite sources to the most basic facets of formatting, including the proper way to number pages in an essay.
Instructions
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1
Position page numbers at the top right-hand corner of your paper. The page number should be half an inch from the top of the page, and it should line up with the right margin.
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2
Use Arabic numerals to number your pages, beginning with 1 for the first page, 2 for the second page, 3 for the third page, and so on.
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3
Precede page numbers with your last name. For example: Smith 1