How to Use MLA Style Heading?

Publication Date: 08 Mar 2018
Author: Julia Stuart

What Is MLA Style?

MLA – stands for Modern Language Association that is the developed set of common rules to format any academic writings. MLA covers both citation and formatting style but we will take a closer look specifically at the heading formatting for an essay.

1. Personal Information. It is not obligatory to form a title page for MLA format. Hence, your personal information indicates in the upper-left corner to designate the writer. Usually, it includes your name, professor’s name, the name of the class and the date one by one in a column.
   Make sure you leave double spaces between the lines, so it is at your professors’ ease to read.
2. The Title of the Essay. The title of your work goes straight underneath your information and in the middle of the paper. Capitalize meaningful words in the title. In case you have a subheading, isolate it with a colon or semicolon, as given in the picture.
3. Double-spacing. According to the MLA regulation, there has to be a double space both between your personal information and the essay heading and between the title and the text. Here is a short guide how to do it in Microsoft Word.

• Outline the text and open the “Paragraph” box. Select “Line spacing” menu and click on “2.0”.  Don’t do the spacing manually.

The distance between the lines won’t be the same and the text may go down when printed.

4. Select a header. The header tags each page through the whole essay. The header is displayed on the second page. It is very comfortable to numerate pages with a header. Moreover, it can be the upper or the bottom header.

• For MLA the upper header is used and indicates the writer’s last name and the page number.
• Notice that there’s no need to write p. or pg. after the number.
• Plus, the professor may give you an instruction to place a page number at the bottom header. Follow the instruction precisely and verify all the indications after you finish the paper.
• It has one more great advantage: if the font on the page is different and you need it to be the same, just highlight the number in the essay header and pick the right front.

5. Check your professor’s guidelines. Section heading is not always necessary but if you are asked to write so, make sure you follow all the indications for it.
6. Section heading. For the extra headings in the work divide it into smaller meaningful parts and reread them. Only after you have the part written thing of a section heading and adjust it to the formatting guidelines. As usual, the paper is split into sections when there’re more than 5 pages.
7. Each one has a number. MLA rules imply putting a number in front of each section name followed by a period. You may use either Arabic or Roman numeration systems.
8. The subheading in the section. If you need to include subheadings to the section, pick one formatting pattern not just for this particular section but for the whole essay. You can highlight the main heading in bold. Subheadings are also numerated as in the example below. The Word does it automatically if you set it.

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