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How to Write an Essay Outline

It’s 11 p.m., your paper is due tomorrow, and you’re only about halfway done. You’re typing along and when you realize that, wait…you’re actually not a huge fan of your argument or the supporting examples you’re using. Your options are to haphazardly keep writing or to backtrack and rehash what you’ve already done. Ugh. Unsurprisingly, both options aren’t great.

This scenario is scary, but totally avoidable! Though it’s tempting to just start writing, one of the best steps you can take before you type a single word is to create an outline for your paper. By taking the time to write a paper outline, you can prevent the scenario above and make your writing process a cinch!

Guide Overview

What is a paper outline, why it’s worth writing an outline.

• Step 1: gather your relevant materials
• Step 2: create your thesis
• Step 3: find examples
• Step 4: analyze your examples
• Step 5: arrange your examples

A paper outline is a skeletal version of your paper. Another way to think about an outline is to view it as a roadmap. An outline helps you organize and streamline your thoughts ahead of time. By front loading this work, you allow the eventual writing process to be much easier: instead of having to backtrack and see if your paper makes sense, you can refer to your outline and be rest assured that you’re on the right track.

It’s understandable if you think it’s not worth the time to write an outline. After all, writing a paper in itself is a lot of work – why add an extra step?

Here’s the secret: creating an outline and then writing your paper takes about the same amount of time as jumping straight into writing your paper. Why? By immediately writing, you run the risk of having to go back and see if the flow of your paper makes sense. Backtracking takes up a lot of time: having to go back and revise your paper because you missed a point can be a pain.

Taking the time to outline your paper gives you the space to see what arguments work, which examples to include, and more. Doing this prep work ahead of time prevents you from having to do it while in the middle of your paper. Your completed outline serves as a solid reference as you write your assignment. In an ideal world, your outline should be so thorough that the writing process is essentially just you converting your bullet points into sentences that flow together!

How to outline a paper

Step 1: gather your relevant materials.

The first step to take when outlining a paper is to gather all your relevant materials. If you’re writing a paper about a book you’re reading in class, start thinking about which passages from the book are relevant to your prompt. If you’re writing a paper about a broader topic, identify what sources you’ll need to construct your argument.

Pro tip: Avoid plagiarism and keep track of the sources you’re using at EasyBib.com! Easily create an APA or MLA format citation , try out our Chicago citation generator , and find help for other citation styles.

Step 2: Create your thesis

After you’ve compiled your materials, start thinking about your thesis statement. Revisit your assignment prompt, peruse your materials, and determine what your viewpoint is regarding the prompt.

Step 3: Find examples

Once you have your thesis, come up with ways to support it. Identify the quotes you need or the arguments you want to utilize in order to bolster your thesis.

Step 4: Analyze Your Examples

Write 3-4 bullet points connecting your examples to your thesis. The analysis part of your paper is the meat of your paper, so feel free to take as much time as you want during this step.

Step 5: Arrange Your Examples

Now that you have your examples and analysis, arrange them in a logical way that helps you develop and support your thesis. This is the step in which you can start copying and pasting your notes into an outline that mimics the flow of your paper. By the end of this step, you should have a solid outline!

Here’s a template for a five paragraph essay you can use for your papers moving forward:

Before you jump into writing your paper, it might pay to take a quick look at our EasyBib grammar guides . Discover what an abstract noun is, read a determiner definition , see the difference between regular and irregular verbs , and get familiar with other parts of speech.

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• Academic Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• College Admissions Essay
• Expository Essay
• Persuasive Essay
• Research Paper
• Thesis Statement
• Writing a Conclusion
• Writing an Introduction
• Writing an Outline
• Writing a Summary

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Trying to devise a structure for your essay can be one of the most difficult parts of the writing process. Making a detailed outline before you begin writing is a good way to make sure your ideas come across in a clear and logical order. A good outline will also save you time in the revision process, reducing the possibility that your ideas will need to be rearranged once you've written them.

The First Steps

Before you can begin outlining, you need to have a sense of what you will argue in the essay. From your analysis and close readings of primary and/or secondary sources you should have notes, ideas, and possible quotes to cite as evidence. Let's say you are writing about the 1999 Republican Primary and you want to prove that each candidate's financial resources were the most important element in the race. At this point, your notes probably lack much coherent order. Most likely, your ideas are still in the order in which they occurred to you; your notes and possible quotes probably still adhere to the chronology of the sources you've examined. Your goal is to rearrange your ideas, notes, and quotes—the raw material of your essay—into an order that best supports your argument, not the arguments you've read in other people's works. To do this, you have to group your notes into categories and then arrange these categories in a logical order.

Generalizing

The first step is to look over each individual piece of information that you've written and assign it to a general category. Ask yourself, "If I were to file this in a database, what would I file it under?" If, using the example of the Republican Primary, you wrote down an observation about John McCain's views on health care, you might list it under the general category of  "Health care policy." As you go through your notes, try to reuse categories whenever possible. Your goal is to reduce your notes to no more than a page of category listings.

Now examine your category headings. Do any seem repetitive? Do any go together? "McCain's expenditure on ads" and "Bush's expenditure on ads," while not exactly repetitive, could easily combine into a more general category like "Candidates' expenditures on ads." Also, keep an eye out for categories that no longer seem to relate to your argument. Individual pieces of information that at first seemed important can begin to appear irrelevant when grouped into a general category.

Now it's time to generalize again. Examine all your categories and look for common themes. Go through each category and ask yourself, "If I were to place this piece of information in a file cabinet, what would I label that cabinet?" Again, try to reuse labels as often as possible: "Health Care," "Foreign Policy," and "Immigration" can all be contained under "Policy Initiatives." Make these larger categories as general as possible so that there are no more than three or four for a 7-10 page paper.

With your notes grouped into generalized categories, the process of ordering them should be easier. To begin, look at your most general categories. With your thesis in mind, try to find a way that the labels might be arranged in a sentence or two that supports your argument. Let's say your thesis is that financial resources played the most important role in the 1999 Republican Primary. Your four most general categories are "Policy Initiatives," "Financial Resources," "Voters' Concerns," and "Voters' Loyalty." You might come up with the following sentence: ÒAlthough McCain's policy initiatives were closest to the voters' concerns, Bush's financial resources won the voters' loyalty.Ó This sentence should reveal the order of your most general categories. You will begin with an examination of McCain's and Bush's views on important issues and compare them to the voters' top concerns. Then you'll look at both candidates' financial resources and show how Bush could win voters' loyalty through effective use of his resources, despite his less popular policy ideas.

With your most general categories in order, you now must order the smaller categories. To do so, arrange each smaller category into a sentence or two that will support the more general sentence you've just devised. Under the category of "Financial Resources," for instance, you might have the smaller categories of "Ad Expenditure," "Campaign Contributions" and "Fundraising." A sentence that supports your general argument might read: "Bush's early emphasis on fundraising led to greater campaign contributions, allowing him to have a greater ad expenditure than McCain."

The final step of the outlining process is to repeat this procedure on the smallest level, with the original notes that you took for your essay. To order what probably was an unwieldy and disorganized set of information at the beginning of this process, you need now only think of a sentence or two to support your general argument. Under the category "Fundraising," for example, you might have quotes about each candidate's estimation of its importance, statistics about the amount of time each candidate spent fundraising, and an idea about how the importance of fundraising never can be overestimated. Sentences to support your general argument might read: "No candidate has ever raised too much money [your idea]. While both McCain and Bush acknowledged the importance of fundraising [your quotes], the numbers clearly point to Bush as the superior fundraiser [your statistics]." The arrangement of your ideas, quotes, and statistics now should come naturally.

Putting It All Together

With these sentences, you have essentially constructed an outline for your essay. The most general ideas, which you organized in your first sentence, constitute the essay's sections. They follow the order in which you placed them in your sentence. The order of the smaller categories within each larger category (determined by your secondary sentences) indicates the order of the paragraphs within each section. Finally, your last set of sentences about your specific notes should show the order of the sentences within each paragraph. An outline for the essay about the 1999 Republican Primary (showing only the sections worked out here) would look something like this:

I. POLICY INITIATIVES

II.  VOTERS' CONCERNS

III.  FINANCIAL RESOURCES

            A.  Fundraising

                        a.  Original Idea

                        b.  McCain Quote/Bush Quote

                        c.  McCain Statistics/Bush Statistics

            B.  Campaign Contributions

            C.  Ad Expenditure

IV.  VOTERS' LOYALTY

Copyright 2000, David Kornhaber, for the Writing Center at Harvard University

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10 Page Essay: Examples, Topics, & Word Count

What does a ten page essay look like? If you’re a student, you’ve probably asked yourself this question. 10 page essays are usually assigned to check one’s ability to formulate their thoughts. A ten page essay word count is 2450 to 2500 words (12 pt double-spaced). A paper of 10 pages usually consists of 25 to 33 paragraphs.

When choosing a topic for a 10 pages essay, remember that it is quite a short piece. That’s why your topic shouldn’t be too complicated. You might want to focus on football, speeding, COVID-19, or respect.

If you’re searching for 10 page essay examples, look at the list below. We’ve gathered a collection of A+ samples for you to get inspired. Knock them dead!

10-page Essay Examples: 4714 Samples

Problems of everyday addictions in society.

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Cultural and Racial Inequality in Health Care

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• Subjects: Design Fashion
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• Subjects: Business Company Missions
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How to write three-page essays Quickly (Plus titles/topics and tips)

There are many ways to kill a rat (as an adage goes), and so are many ways to write an essay fast. There is no single bullet when it comes to writing essays with different paragraphs and pages. It is not every time that we write essays without a challenge. Instead, we can overcome these challenges by understanding the essay writing process.

Are you assigned to write a three-page paper and need to do it fast but do not know where to begin? Well, you are not alone. Even though at face value, a 3-page essay might appear as though it is the longest task you will ever complete, sometimes in short deadlines, it necessarily does not have to be a struggle writing it.

We come bearing the good news because, in this article, we take you through how to write a three-page essay task faster, especially when you are strapped for time, the deadline is fast approaching, or when it is last-minute writing. We know that most students work better under the pressure of strict deadlines, and if that sounds like you, do not panic.

You can write your essay or research paper with three pages and beat the deadline to score the best mark. The only thing you need to do is to read this article and find out how to produce an excellent paper. And if you need help with writing urgent 3-page essays , you can hire a fast writer on our website. 

How long is a three-page essay or research paper?

Before we understand the practical ways to write a quick three-page paper in the least time possible, say an hour or two, we begin by looking at the bells and whistles.

A three-page essay is sometimes called a 750-word essay because it contains between 750 and 900 words. The rationale is that a typed page can be 250., 275, or 300 words. It is a formal essay for middle school and is also common in high school. We consider a 3-page double-spaced essay as having between 750 and 825 words given that most papers written in APA or MLA are double-spaced.

If you are to write a 3-page essay and the instructions direct that you come up with 3 full pages, ensure that each page with content is filled. It should take you around 300 words per page, meaning 3 full pages would be 900 words long.

In terms of length, three-page essays can have a minimum of three paragraphs. However, the maximum number of paragraphs depends on your ideas, the structure of your essay, and the word count specified in the instructions. However, since a paragraph is between 125 words and 160 words (words to paragraph conversion for essays), the body of a 3-page should have at least 4 or 5 paragraphs long.

When writing a 3-pages essay, your introduction and conclusion should have approximately 10-15% of the word count. This means that they should at least be between 100 and 125 words long. The body should carry 75-80% of the word count, which translates to between 620 and 660 words for a 3-page body paragraph.

The paragraph is longer because it is where you develop the thesis statement by supporting it. The body paragraphs comprise topic sentences , supporting sentences, and concluding sentences.

If you are wondering what a 3-page essay or research paper looks like, it contains at least five paragraphs . As long as it is 750-825 words, written in font size 12, Times New Roman or Arial, and has a 1-inch margin all around, it is a three-page paper.

The time it takes to write a three-page essay or paper

With the understanding of how long a three-page essay is, let us now look at how long it takes to write one. Assuming you have little time and want to complete a 3-page essay or research paper, submit it, and attend to other assignments or personal stuff, knowing the time it will take to complete your essay matters.

The accurate amount of time it takes depends on a hoard of factors such as:

• The complexity or straightforwardness of your topic.
• The required length of your essay.
• Whether you are writing the first or polished draft.
• The availability of sources to get evidence to use in your essay .
• Your typing speeds
• Your organizational and writing skills
• How fast do you unpack the essay prompt or question?
• Your experience in writing research papers.

Mostly, your experience and writing skills matter the most when it comes to writing any paper or essay fast. If you have top-notch planning, organization, typing, and writing skills, you rest assured to take the least time to complete your research paper or essay. As you will realize later, writing a 3-page essay is 50% planning and 50% organizing.

An experienced writer should complete a three-page essay in an hour or less if it is not complex and in 2 hours or less if it is on a complex topic. However, a student with entry-level writing skills will take more hours, say 5-6 hours, write the same paper and score a good grade. So, unless you are pressured by the deadline, it is always good to take your time. But that does not mean taking a whole week to write a 3-page essay.

How do you write a 3 Page Essay faster and more accurately? The 6 Steps

If you are assigned a three-page essay or research paper and are supposed to submit it between 2 hours and 12 hours (or before midnight or overnight) tops, follow the steps outlined below. We tested these steps, recommended them to busy students, and got feedback that they worked for successful students in college and university.

Because you already know the number of words and the length of your essay, it should not be a bother. Instead, writing it well should be your top priority. Note that the organizational structure of a 3-page essay is for a shorter essay. When you are used to longer essays, condensing points becomes a challenge. However, follow these steps to write it with ease and faster.

1. Plan out your essay or paper

Planning your time well helps you develop your focus and concentrate on the things that matter. Jumping right into writing could be detrimental, especially if you do not know the scope, direction, or points to lay out. You may end up abandoning the essay halfway and getting frustrated.

The essence of creating a schedule for your paper is to focus on writing, even when you are pressed for time. Besides, it helps you to beat procrastination and writer�s block. You are also guaranteed to get distraction-free environments and times to complete your essay.

If you have 6 hours to complete a three-page essay, spend 3 hours in the preparation stage, an hour on writing, and an hour on editing and polishing (post-writing rituals). If you have two hours, schedule 30 minutes for preparing or the prewriting stage, 45 minutes for writing, and the rest for editing and proofreading. And if you have two days to complete the same, spend 5 hours preparing the essay, an entire day on writing, and another 5 hours polishing, proofreading, and editing.

2. Brainstorm

After you have planned your time, begin by reading the essay prompt or the research paper question. You then need to unpack the question, understand what is required of you, and brainstorm some ideas, topics, and insights to include in your paper. This is also a chance to draw out the main points, anticipate challenges, and come up with solutions.

In most cases, you can use mind maps or concept maps to record your thoughts or take notes as you brainstorm. Develop a perspective, potential solutions, the significance of the topic, or likely research sources/evidence to use. Also, think of the best titles and thesis statements for your essay.

3. Draft an outline

There is no doubt that sketching an outline saves time taken to write. It helps you focus on your writing. For your 3-page essay, develop a point-to-point, topical, or complete sentence outline. You can always change the outline as you write.

Write the best title for your essay and construct a declarative and reasonable thesis statement. You should also map out the topic sentences and rope in some of the evidence to use in your essay.

4. Research

Research either makes or breaks your essay. The more and deeper you research, the more your instructor, professor, or teaching assistant can tell that your essay is loaded with facts, evidence, and a good flow.

To research well, check the insights you developed as you brainstormed. Next, browse through the internet and rove through the related websites, books, journal articles, and periodicals to get sources from where you can extract evidence to support facts and arguments in your essay. Preferably, look at scholarly databases such as EBSCOhost, JSTOR, Science Direct, Web of Science, or ProQuest for scholarly articles.

As you identify the potential sources, organize your bibliography and download and organize the sources. And as you research, stick to your outline. You can tweak the outline if the new information or approach supports the thesis statement better. You can use the librarians to get research materials if you have an extended deadline and little time.

Good research provides fodder for the next step, writing the first draft.

5. Write the First Draft

When writing, focus on writing first and editing later approach. You can easily bring your analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and creativity skills.

Begin by polishing the essay title from the list you developed when brainstorming. The topic should be concise, loaded with information, and related to the thesis and subject of the three-page essay.

Write the introduction beginning with the hook or attention grabber , which can be a fun or shocking fact, statistics, or valuable information. You should then write the background statement that covers the topic, related information, and significance of the paper. Finally, finalize the introduction by stating your focused thesis statement and transitioning to the body paragraphs.

Next, work on the body paragraphs because your essay must have several supporting or developing paragraphs. As mentioned, a three-page paper should have 4-5 body paragraphs. Each should have a topic sentence, supporting sentences (evidence, examples, and commentaries), and closing sentences. The paragraphs should have a balanced number of words, be cited, and be connected to the thesis statement. Again, use transition or linking words and phrases to create a good flow of ideas.

Finalize the essay writing process by concluding your essay. The conclusion should restate the thesis, summarize the body section, and give closure to the essay. You can have a call-to-action for the audience to ensure they remain challenged after being informed.

6. Improve and Polish the First Draft

After completing the first draft, you can take a small break from writing. The essence is developing an objective mind that can see through your writing mistakes.

This post-writing stage begins with editing and revising for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other writing errors, such as typos. Next, proceed to proofread your essay so you can further correct any mistakes, such as the wrong flow of ideas, misplaced ideas, uncited paragraphs, and missing subtitles if any are required. Finally, format your essay in APA, MLA, Harvard, ASA, AMA, or Chicago format.

Read our guide on writing a 3-to-4-page essay or research paper  in case you are confused about what to include when there is the mention of upper and lower limits to the word count.

Best Titles, Topics, and Ideas for a 3-Page Research Paper or Essay

Assuming you have been assigned to write a 3-page essay and do not know what topics to write your essay on, you can pick one from the list below. The list also has prime ideas for your essay titles and topics.

• How social media prompts anorexia
• Should people attend college?
• Should gun ownership by American citizens be banned?
• Can someone develop skills on their own without college?
• Has urbanization led to increased pollution?
• Domestic violence and alcoholism
• Why can corruption not end in the public sector?
• People should develop empathy.
• The plastic ban helps conserve the environment
• Why drunk driving is dangerous
• Should children bring their phones and tablets to school?
• Are self-taught programmers the best at their job?
• YouTube is a great and accessible university
• Are there solutions to microplastics in oceans?
• Should rich countries pay more for pollution?
• Older people should be allowed to keep pets
• Benefits of continuing education for nurses
• Strategies to solve the nursing shortage
• Electroconvulsive therapy in treating mental health disorders
• Effectiveness of group therapy in treating mental health disorders
• How stigma affects the families of those with mental health issues
• Use of complementary and alternative medicine in mental health disorders
• Use of telepsychiatry in managing mental health patients remotely
• How pressure from work causes mental health problems
• Reasons for increased domestic violence during Covid-19
• Access to mental health facilities by the Indigenous people
• Impacts of community policing on prostitution
• Benefits of GMO plants and animals in food security
• Impacts of groupware on organizations
• The uneven criminal justice system in America
• Impacts of COVID-19 on the tourism industry
• How to solve conflicts in the workplace
• Consequences of incivility in the workplace
• The use of social media to promote physical activity
• Impacts of Stress on Physical and Mental wellbeing
• The use of the military in disaster management
• Impacts of PTSD on Veterans
• Taking care of autistic children
• The rich should pay more taxes
• How to address homelessness and poverty in America
• Causes and solutions to world hunger
• Impacts of student burnout
• Women should not procure abortions
• Gay couples should not (be allowed) to adopt kids
• America is not the ultimate superpower
• The insurrection of gangs and militia in America
• Impacts of gun violence
• Benefits of no-kill shelters
• The ethics of killing stray dogs and cats
• Euthanasia is a no-kill shelter
• Causes of teenage pregnancies
• Why teen suicide on live social media is on the rise
• Understanding domestic poverty
• Children should not be jailed
• Burnout among college athletes
• Does Going to the Beach Help Relieve Symptoms of Seasonal Depression?
• Impacts of divorce on children
• Challenges that single mothers face
• Benefits of counseling for school children
• Effects of e-cigarettes
• Which sport best prepares young people (under 15 years of age) for success in life as an adult and why?
• The impact of domestic violence on the academic performance of children

Related Reading:

• How to write an analytical essay.
• How to use AI to write essays.
• Steps for a better essay on gun control.
• How to write a perfect reflective essay.
• How to organize a movie review essay or paper.

Unbelievably it is just as simple as that. Writing three pages of an essay or research paper can be quick if you plan well. No single formula can work best; all you must do is be prompt and thorough with every step in the writing process.

When assigned an essay that requires three pages of content, breath in, relax, unpack everything, plan, and smash it using the tips we have discussed. The more you practice these steps, the more you learn to write essays fast.

If you have an urgent 3-page essay and need professional writing help , we have writers who can help. Do not struggle to fail when we can write for you a three-page model essay or paper that is 100% original, non-plagiarized, and well-organized/formatted.

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• MLA format for academic papers and essays

MLA Format | Complete Guidelines & Free Template

Published on December 11, 2019 by Raimo Streefkerk . Revised on March 5, 2024 by Jack Caulfield.

The MLA Handbook provides guidelines for creating MLA citations and formatting academic papers. This quick guide will help you set up your MLA format paper in no time.

Start by applying these MLA format guidelines to your document:

• Times New Roman 12
• 1″ page margins
• Double line spacing
• ½” indent for new paragraphs
• Title case capitalization for headings

For accurate citations, you can use our free MLA Citation Generator .

Download Word template Open Google Docs template

(To use the Google Docs template, copy the file to your Drive by clicking on ‘file’ > ‘Make a copy’)

Table of contents

How to set up mla format in google docs, header and title, running head, works cited page, creating mla style citations, headings and subheadings, tables and figures, frequently asked questions about mla format.

The header in MLA format is left-aligned on the first page of your paper. It includes

• Your full name
• Your instructor’s or supervisor’s name
• The course name or number
• The due date of the assignment

After the MLA header, press ENTER once and type your paper title. Center the title and don’t forget to apply title-case capitalization. Read our article on writing strong titles that are informative, striking and appropriate.

For a paper with multiple authors, it’s better to use a separate title page instead.

At the top of every page, including the first page, you need to include your last name and the page number. This is called the “running head.” Follow these steps to set up the MLA running head in your Word or Google Docs document:

• Double-click at the top of a page
• Type your last name
• Insert automatic page numbering
• Align the content to the right

The running head should look like this:

The Works Cited list is included on a separate page at the end of your paper. You list all the sources you referenced in your paper in alphabetical order. Don’t include sources that weren’t cited in the paper, except potentially in an MLA annotated bibliography assignment.

Place the title “Works Cited” in the center at the top of the page. After the title, press ENTER once and insert your MLA references.

If a reference entry is longer than one line, each line after the first should be indented ½ inch (called a hanging indent ). All entries are double spaced, just like the rest of the text.

Generate accurate MLA citations with Scribbr

Prefer to cite your sources manually? Use the interactive example below to see what the Works Cited entry and MLA in-text citation look like for different source types.

Headings and subheadings are not mandatory, but they can help you organize and structure your paper, especially in longer assignments.

MLA has only a few formatting requirements for headings. They should

• Be written in title case
• Be left-aligned
• Not end in a period

We recommend keeping the font and size the same as the body text and applying title case capitalization. In general, boldface indicates greater prominence, while italics are appropriate for subordinate headings.

Chapter Title

Section Heading

Tip: Both Google Docs and Microsoft Word allow you to create heading levels that help you to keep your headings consistent.

Tables and other illustrations (referred to as “figures”) should be placed as close to the relevant part of text as possible. MLA also provides guidelines for presenting them.

MLA format for tables

Tables are labeled and numbered, along with a descriptive title. The label and title are placed above the table on separate lines; the label and number appear in bold.

A caption providing information about the source appears below the table; you don’t need one if the table is your own work.

Below this, any explanatory notes appear, marked on the relevant part of the table with a superscript letter. The first line of each note is indented; your word processor should apply this formatting automatically.

Just like in the rest of the paper, the text is double spaced and you should use title case capitalization for the title (but not for the caption or notes).

MLA format for figures

Figures (any image included in your paper that isn’t a table) are also labeled and numbered, but here, this is integrated into the caption below the image. The caption in this case is also centered.

The label “Figure” is abbreviated to “Fig.” and followed by the figure number and a period. The rest of the caption gives either full source information, or (as in the example here) just basic descriptive information about the image (author, title, publication year).

Source information in table and figure captions

If the caption of your table or figure includes full source information and that source is not otherwise cited in the text, you don’t need to include it in your Works Cited list.

Give full source information in a caption in the same format as you would in the Works Cited list, but without inverting the author name (i.e. John Smith, not Smith, John).

MLA recommends using 12-point Times New Roman , since it’s easy to read and installed on every computer. Other standard fonts such as Arial or Georgia are also acceptable. If in doubt, check with your supervisor which font you should be using.

The main guidelines for formatting a paper in MLA style are as follows:

• Use an easily readable font like 12 pt Times New Roman
• Set 1 inch page margins
• Apply double line spacing
• Include a four-line MLA heading on the first page
• Center the paper’s title
• Indent every new paragraph ½ inch
• Use title case capitalization for headings
• Cite your sources with MLA in-text citations
• List all sources cited on a Works Cited page at the end

The fastest and most accurate way to create MLA citations is by using Scribbr’s MLA Citation Generator .

Search by book title, page URL, or journal DOI to automatically generate flawless citations, or cite manually using the simple citation forms.

The MLA Handbook is currently in its 9th edition , published in 2021.

This quick guide to MLA style  explains the latest guidelines for citing sources and formatting papers according to MLA.

Usually, no title page is needed in an MLA paper . A header is generally included at the top of the first page instead. The exceptions are when:

• Your instructor requires one, or
• Your paper is a group project

In those cases, you should use a title page instead of a header, listing the same information but on a separate page.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Streefkerk, R. (2024, March 05). MLA Format | Complete Guidelines & Free Template. Scribbr. Retrieved April 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/mla/formatting/

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