Formatting an MLA Works Cited Page

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

You've made it to the end of your essay.

You've written the final word in the last paragraph and put a period at the end of the previous sentence.

• Are you done with your paper now?

If you used research in your paper and are writing in the MLA format, the answer is, "No!"

You must still add the Works Cited page to your essay. The Works Cited page is an essay's final page containing in-text citations. The Works Cited page includes the full citations of the sources cited in the essay's text.

In the five-part MLA In-text Citations series, found in Additional Resources in the right-hand sidebar, you learned how to cite sources in your paper using parenthetical citations for the sources' information.

In this series, MLA Works Cited Page, found in the Related Lessons in the right-hand sidebar, you will learn how to set up this page and write citations for different types of sources.

The Works Cited page follows the final page of the essay. The following is found on a correctly formatted Works Cited page.

1. Your last name and the page number are listed in the page's top right-hand corner (or header).

2. The regular margins used in the rest of the paper are used for the Works Cited page.

3. The title, "Works Cited," is written at the top of the page in Times New Roman 12-point font. The title is centered and written with capital W and capital C. The title is in regular font with no bolding, quotation marks, or underlining.

4. Only the sources with at least one parenthetical in-text citation are listed on the Works Cited page. If you read a source but did not cite it in the essay's text, then that source is NOT listed on a Works Cited page.

5. All sources on the Works Cited page are listed alphabetically by the author's last name. If a source does not have an author, the next piece of information in the citation, the source's title, is used instead.

6. All sources are double-spaced, but do not add any additional space between sources.

7. All sources with a citation longer than one typed line use a hanging indent where the first line of the citation is flush to the left-hand margin, but the rest of the citations are indented by one tab if typing or one-half-inch if handwriting.

Watch the video below for a correctly formatted Works Cited page. It provides useful tips on using shortcuts in MS Word to double-space citations and create the hanging indent for citations longer than one line.

You may want to take notes for yourself if you are not familiar with these MS Word features and use this program for writing.

• Why do you think sources are listed alphabetically on the Works Cited page instead of in the order they are used in an essay?

Sources are listed alphabetically on a Works Cited page to ensure easy organization, consistency, and quick reference for readers, avoiding confusion that could arise from listing them in the order they appear in the essay. This neutral system treats all sources equally.

Move to the Got It? section to practice these formatting skills.