How to Format Your MLA Works Cited Page

In MLA style, the list of sources at the end of your paper is called the Works Cited page. Getting the entries right matters, but so does the page layout itself, and it is an easy place to pick up or lose presentation marks. Here is exactly how MLA 9 expects it to look.

Page setup

• Start the Works Cited on a new page at the end of your paper.
• Keep the same one-inch margins and running header as the rest of the document.
• Centre the title Works Cited at the top. Do not bold, italicise or underline it.
• Double-space everything, both within and between entries.

The hanging indent

Each entry uses a hanging indent: the first line sits flush with the left margin, and every following line of that entry is indented half an inch. This makes the author surnames easy to scan. In a word processor you set this through the paragraph indentation settings rather than by pressing space or tab.

Ordering the entries

List entries alphabetically by the first item, usually the author’s surname. When a source has no author, alphabetise it by the first significant word of its title, ignoring A, An and The. If you cite two works by the same author, alphabetise them by title and replace the repeated name with three hyphens followed by a period in the second entry.

Common slips

Watch for entries that are not alphabetised, missing hanging indents, and titles in the wrong case. MLA uses title case for titles, where most major words are capitalised. You can generate correctly formatted MLA entries with our MLA generator and then simply paste them into a properly formatted page.