MLA Paper Format: How to Set Up Your Paper (9th Edition)

MLA paper format comes down to a handful of numbers: 1-inch margins, a legible 11-13 point font, double spacing throughout, a half-inch paragraph indent, your last name and the page number in the top-right header, and a four-line heading on page one instead of a title page. Those rules come from chapter 1 of the MLA Handbook (9th edition, 2021), "Formatting Your Research Project," and this guide walks through each one, then shows the exact clicks to set them up in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.

If you have set up an MLA paper before and only need a refresher, skim the quick-reference table and the software steps. You are in good company either way: the top comment on the most-watched MLA setup video on YouTube, with 1,800 likes, reads "I always come back to this video because I constantly forget how to set up my papers correctly."

The page setup rules

These five settings apply to the whole document, from the first line of page one through the last entry on the Works Cited page.

Paper size. Standard letter paper, 8.5 x 11 inches. Word and Google Docs both default to it in the US, so this setting rarely needs touching.

Margins. One inch on all four sides (MLA Handbook, 9th ed., section 1.1). This is the default in Word and Google Docs. If your document came from a template or an older file, check it: Layout > Margins > Normal in Word, File > Page setup in Docs.

Font. Section 1.2 asks for a legible typeface in which the regular style contrasts clearly with the italic, sized between 11 and 13 points. Times New Roman at 12 points satisfies the rule and is what most instructors expect, so it is the safe default. Calibri, Georgia, and Arial at 11-12 points also qualify. What fails the rule is anything decorative, condensed, or so geometric that italics look like the regular weight.

Line spacing. Double-space everything: the heading, the title, the body, block quotations, any notes, and the entire Works Cited list. There is no single-spaced element in an MLA paper, and no extra blank line anywhere. The extra-blank-line error is common enough that it gets its own entry in the mistakes section below.

Paragraph indentation. Indent the first line of every paragraph half an inch from the left margin. Press Tab once; both Word and Docs are preset to a half-inch tab stop. Skipping a line between paragraphs is a web-writing habit, and MLA does not use it. The indent alone marks the new paragraph.

MLA also uses one space after a period or other concluding punctuation. If you learned two spaces on a typewriter or from an older instructor, one is the current rule, and Word's editor will flag the doubles for you.

The first page: heading, title, and text

MLA papers do not open with a title page. Page one carries a four-line heading, then the title, then the essay, all on the same page. This surprises people coming from APA, which does require a title page; if you are weighing the two styles for a paper, the differences run deeper than page one, and our APA vs MLA comparison maps them out.

The heading sits in the top-left corner, an inch from the top, flush with the left margin, double-spaced like everything else. Four lines, in this order:

Maya Okafor Dr. Ellen Ramos English 210 12 September 2026

Line by line:

1. Your name, as it appears on the course roster.
2. Your instructor's name. Use the title they use for themselves: Dr. Ramos, Professor Ramos, or Ms. Ramos. When in doubt, the syllabus header tells you.
3. The course name and number, matching the syllabus (English 210, BIO 1406, HIST 2311).
4. The date, in day-month-year order with no commas: 12 September 2026. This is the MLA convention, and it reads oddly to American eyes the first time. Write the day the paper is due or submitted, and spell the month out.

One double-spaced line below the date comes the title, centered. Type it in plain text: standard title capitalization, the same font and size as the body, with no bold, no underline, no italics, no quotation marks, and no closing period. The one exception: if your title mentions another work, that work keeps its usual styling, so a paper on The Great Gatsby italicizes the novel's title inside your own.

One more double-spaced line below the title, the essay begins with a normal half-inch paragraph indent. No extra padding between title and text.

The running head

Every page of an MLA paper, including the first, carries a running head in the top-right corner: your last name, one space, and the page number, half an inch from the top edge and flush with the right margin.

Okafor 1

No comma, no "p.", no punctuation of any kind between name and number. The count starts at 1 on the first page and runs continuously through the Works Cited page, so if your essay ends on page 7, Works Cited is page 8.

Some instructors ask you to leave the running head off page one. The MLA Handbook includes it on every page, so include it unless told otherwise; Word's "Different First Page" checkbox handles the exception if your instructor wants it.

Two words trip people up here: this top-right element is usually called the header, while the four lines with your name and the date are the heading. Assignment instructions mix the two constantly. If a rubric says "MLA header," it almost always means both.

Setting it up in Microsoft Word

Word's defaults get you margins and paper size for free. The rest takes about a minute:

1. Font: On the Home tab, set the font to Times New Roman, size 12. Select all first (Ctrl+A / Cmd+A) if the document already has text.
2. Double spacing: With everything selected, open Line and Paragraph Spacing on the Home tab and pick 2.0. Then, in the same menu, click "Remove Space After Paragraph." This second step matters: Word's default adds extra points of space after every paragraph, which breaks MLA's uniform spacing even when the line setting reads 2.0.
3. Running head: Insert > Page Number > Top of Page > Plain Number 3 (the right-aligned option). Word drops you into the header with the number placed; type your last name and one space to the left of it. Click Close Header and Footer. Check that the header font matches the body, since Word sometimes keeps its own default there.
4. Heading and title: Back in the body, type the four heading lines, press Enter, center the title with Ctrl+E, type it, press Enter, then left-align again (Ctrl+L) and Tab into your first paragraph.

For the Works Cited page at the end, the entries need a hanging indent, which lives in the Paragraph dialog under Special. The full walkthrough is in our guide to hanging indents in Microsoft Word. A viewer tip from one of the big Word tutorials is worth passing on: if you cannot see the ruler that makes indent problems visible, turn it on under View > Ruler.

Setting it up in Google Docs

Docs takes the same four steps with different menus:

1. Font: Set the font dropdown to Times New Roman and the size to 12.
2. Double spacing: Format > Line & paragraph spacing > Double. Also select "Remove space after paragraph" in the same menu if it is active.
3. Running head: Insert > Headers & footers > Header, then Insert > Page numbers and choose the option with numbers on every page, top right. Click into the header, type your last name and a space before the number, set the header text to Times New Roman 12, and align it right.
4. Heading and title: Type the four heading lines, center the title (Ctrl+Shift+E), then left-align and Tab into the first paragraph.

Docs hides the hanging indent for Works Cited under Format > Align & indent > Indentation options; our Google Docs hanging indent guide covers it with screenshots. Docs also offers a built-in MLA template (File > New > From template gallery > Report, MLA), which gets the skeleton right but still needs your heading details, and its sample text has a way of surviving into submitted drafts. Set it up manually once and you will know how to fix whatever a template gets wrong.

Section headings, block quotations, and tables

Most short essays need none of these. Longer papers usually need at least one.

Section headings. For papers long enough to divide, MLA 9 expanded its guidance: headings sit flush with the left margin, in title case, with no closing period and no styling requirement beyond consistency. Every heading at the same level must look the same, and each level should be visibly distinct from the levels above and below it (bold for level one and italics for level two is a common scheme). Numbering the sections is allowed in an essay (1. Early Poems, 2. The Middle Period) and consistency again is the rule. Keep headings short, and if your instructor said "no headings," that wins.

Block quotations. A prose quotation that runs longer than four lines in your paper is set off as a block: start it on a new line, indent the entire quotation half an inch from the left margin, keep it double-spaced, and drop the quotation marks, since the indent already signals quotation. The parenthetical citation goes after the final punctuation, which is the reverse of a normal in-line quotation. For verse, the threshold is more than three lines of poetry. The full rules for citing what you quote, block or in-line, are in our complete guide to in-text citations.

Tables and figures. A table is labeled above itself, flush left: "Table 1", then a descriptive caption on the next line. Any other visual, from a chart to a photograph, is labeled as a figure below itself: "Fig. 1." followed by the caption. Place each one close to the passage that discusses it, and cite the source under the table or in the figure caption.

Endnotes. If you use notes, they go on a separate page after the essay and before the Works Cited list, under the centered, unstyled title "Notes."

The Works Cited page starts on a new page after the essay (or after the notes), continues the page numbering, and centers its title in plain text. Entry formatting, alphabetization, and the sample page are covered in our Works Cited formatting guide.

Special cases

A title page when one is required

Instructors and departments can require a title page even though the Handbook's default is the first-page heading. Follow their layout if they give one. Absent a layout, center each element on its own line, double-spaced, starting about a third of the way down: title first, then your name, instructor, course, and date. Ask before inventing anything more elaborate; a title page requirement usually comes with a sample.

A group paper

For a paper with multiple authors, MLA recommends a title page in place of the heading: each author's name on its own line, followed by the instructor, course, and date, with the title centered below. For the running head on a coauthored paper, the Handbook offers less guidance. The defensible choices are to list all last names if they fit on one line, or to use the page number alone if they do not; pick one, apply it to every page, and check the assignment sheet, since group projects are exactly where instructors publish their own rules.

MLA 8 versus MLA 9

The 9th edition arrived in April 2021, and its paper-format rules carried over from the 8th essentially unchanged: same margins, same spacing, same heading, same running head. What the new edition added is guidance that the 8th barely covered, including fuller treatment of heading levels, lists, and annotated bibliographies. So if a competition or an older syllabus asks for "MLA 8 format," set the paper up exactly as this guide describes and it will be correct in both editions. The differences between editions live mainly in the works-cited template's finer points, and they are small.

When your instructor's rules differ

They win. MLA says so itself: the Handbook's formatting chapter repeatedly defers to instructors, and the campus library guides that translate MLA for students do the same. A professor who wants 11-point Calibri, no running head on page one, or headings in every essay is not misusing MLA; they are exercising the discretion the style explicitly grants. Format to the syllabus first and the Handbook second, and when the two conflict silently, ask. A recurring frustration in student threads is a professor who assigns "MLA format" with no further instructions and different websites that contradict each other; when that happens, the rules in this guide are the Handbook's own defaults and the safest reading of the assignment.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

• Extra space between paragraphs. Word and Docs both default to added space after each paragraph, so a document can be "double-spaced" and still fail the uniform-spacing rule. Fix it once with "Remove Space After Paragraph" (Word) or "Remove space after paragraph" (Docs).
• A styled title. Bold, a larger size, underlining, or quotation marks around your own title all break the rule that the title is plain text in the body font. The urge to make the title look like a title is strong; resist it.
• Heading data in the header. The four lines with your name and the date belong in the body of page one. Typing them into the header region repeats them on every page and pushes the page number out of position.
• The date in month-day-year order. "September 12, 2026" is the American convention; MLA's heading uses "12 September 2026." A small detail, and one of the first things a grader trained on MLA notices.
• Page numbering that restarts or skips the Works Cited page. The count is continuous from page one through the final Works Cited page. Restarting at the works-cited section usually means a section break crept in.
• A quotation-marked block quote. Once a long quotation is indented as a block, the quotation marks come off. Keeping them doubles the signal and marks the formatting as unread.
• First-line indents made with the space bar. Five spaces looks close to a half inch until the font or margins change. Use Tab or the paragraph indent setting so the indent survives edits.

MLA paper format at a glance