According to MLA formatting guidelines, your work should be printed on a standard, 8 1/2-inch by 11-inch sheet of white paper. The text should be double-spaced using a legible font in size 12 point. The margins should be one inch all around the page. The first line of paragraphs is indented one half-inch from the left margin. Each page should have a header in the upper right-hand corner of the page, 1/2 inch from the top margin and flush with the right margin, that numbers the pages consecutively.
Generally, papers written in MLA format do not have a cover page, unless one is specifically requested by your instructor. In the upper left-hand side of the page, list your name, your instructor, the course and the date; be sure to double-space this text. The title should be centered on the page, one double-spaced line after the date. Do not capitalize all letters of the title. Remember to double space again between the title and your first line of text.
The MLA format has specific requirements for in text citations for different types of works. Generally, the information depends on the source medium and its entry in your Works Cited page. If you are citing a book, you will list the following information in parentheses at the end of the cited text, regardless of where it falls in the sentence, but before any separating punctuation: the author's last name, as it appears in the Works Cited and the page number or section of the work wherein the cited information can be found. If you are citing the same work by the same author immediately after having cited it once already, you need only to list the page number of section wherein the information is found. However, if you cite one author, then another and then wish to cite the first again, you need to include the author's last name again.
According to MLA formatting guidelines, a Works Cited page, which lists all of the works you've cited in your paper, should be on a separate page at the end of your paper with the same general formatting rules of all other pages. Title this page "Works Cited" and center the title. List your works cited according to the proper MLA style. For example, a book might be listed like this:
Last name, First name. Title of the book (italicized). Place of publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.