Dr Matt McConeghy

Sample MLA Style Pages

The first rule for any paper is: Follow Your Professor's Instructions!

Guys, No one cares what your high school teacher, your other professor or your roommate's ex-lover says about it. You have to follow the rules from the professor who is getting the paper!!

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• Alphabetical order.
• Do not put numbers next to the list of entries -they should be alphabetical, not numbered.
• Double line spaces for every line, all lines, except as noted below.
• All one font, all the same normal size. Do NOT use multiple sizes or designs of fonts.
• Works Cited page must have a page number, the same as all other pages.
• The words Works Cited are normal size font, center, not underlined, not boldface and not in quotes.

Table Page (MLA Sect 3.7)

Tables take up little space, and make citation easy. They should be neat and easy to read.

Table and Figure pages have page numbers, but do not count as part of the text -- that is, if you were assigned a five page paper, the table page is NOT one of the five pages.

No table or figure should be in a paper unless it directly relates to the subject of the text and is discussed and made relevant to the rest of the paper.

Each table should be on a separate page, one table to a page.

You may insert some blank lines in order to make the table look neat and tidy.

When you put a table in your paper, then in the text you refer to the Table like this:

"A comparison of the populations of Rhode Island and Cuba (see Table 1) shows that ..."

VERY IMPORTANT --

Using a table from a book or web page is quoting. You MUST have citations (see samples) to explain clearly where all the data came from! Otherwise it is definitely plagiarism (see How to Do Citations).

The MLA says "Place tables and illustrations as close as possible to the parts of the text to which they relate"(106) not in the appendix or at the end of the paper.

See MLA Handbook Sect 3.7 for more information

Figure Page

A Figure is anything that isn't a table -- a map, a photo, a drawing, a portrait, a diagram, etc.

Table and Figure pages have page numbers, but do not count as part of the text -- that is, if you were assigned a five page paper, the Figure page is NOT one of the five pages.

Often a picture will be helpful in illustrating some important point in your text, but NEVER use pictures unless they relate directly to the text. A research paper is not an advertising brochure! Pictures are not there for artistic purposes, they are there because they illustrate some vitally important point!

You MUST put the Citation. Unless you drew this image from scratch by yourself out of your own head, you MUST give a proper citation! Don't plagiarize by accident! If you do an original drawing, do not include the actual original of your drawing in the paper. Instead, make a neat photocopy of it to include.

		Smith 3
	Figure 1 A map of Cuba (Brown 22) which has been reduced in size. It shows the main cities and surrounding areas of the ocean.

Suppose I make a copy of someone else's drawing. If I made a copy of an original drawing by the artist Winslow Homer, then on the Figure page that held my drawing I would type this as a citation -- (drawing after Winslow Homer) -- and then in the Works Cited I would put an entry for Winslow Homer's original drawing, with his name, picture title, year, etc. as if it were a book.