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How to Write an MLA Heading for Essays

The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers is published by the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). The style guide is used for high school, college, graduate students and writing professionals. However, the formatting of your content when typing out the research paper is just as important as the quality of the content itself. The formatting of the heading is very specific and not following the correct format can have a negative affect on the grading of your paper.

Instructions

Instructions
- 1
  Open Microsoft Word or any applicable word processing program. Set your margins to 1-inch on all sides of the paper. In the "Format" option on the menu bar select "Paragraph" and set the line spacing to "Double."
- 2
  Insert your cursor in the top left hand corner of the document and type your full name and press "Enter" to begin the next field on the next line. On the next line, write the instructor's full name, then Class information, such as course and class number. The final line will have the date written out in the DD Month YYYY format. For example: 11 November 2010.
  
  It should read like this with a double space in between each line:
  
  Name
  
  Instructor Name
  
  Class Information
  
  Date
- 3
  Write the title of the paper on the next line without any extra spaces after the "Date" field.

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