How To Write an Essay in MLA Format
Everyone in high school and college is assigned essays. Some people love to write, others not so much. Learning how to write an essay in MLA format is very important for students because it teaches them the proper structure and guidelines of writing a well-developed piece of writing.
It also teaches them how to use proper documentation.
MLA stands for the Modern Language Association, which is the standard style of formatting papers for colleges and universities. This formatting style requires you to put your name, page number, and date (or “Date” if it all comes in one entry) in the top corner of every page of your paper. It’s not fun having to flip through hundreds of pages looking for where you started your essay again!
There are several different ways that MLA style sets an essay apart from other writing styles. The most common set-apart feature is that students must create works cited list at the end of their research paper before they submit it. Here’s where we get into some trouble – do I have to include all of my sources in my works cited list or can I just put the ones that are necessary? The answer is that you must cite every source that you’ve added information from, whether it’s a quote, paraphrase, or summary. Usually when students are writing their works cited page they end up citing every source they used. This may seem like a lot at first but once you get in the habit of doing it right it becomes much easier.
Start your MLA paper off with the Introduction paragraph by providing basic information about your topic and what this document will be discussing in general terms.
Let’s say your name is John Smith. You would write “John Smith” in the top corner where it says “Author.” This format only requires the last name, not the first. Keep this in mind when you are preparing to cite your sources in parenthetical references or works cited entries.
Next, you need to decide if you are going to use MLA style headings or standard heading styles for your paper. For example, if you are writing a five-paragraph essay with 3-5 different headings then it is recommended that you follow standard heading guidelines to keep everything consistent throughout your entire piece of writing.
Your next step would be to choose an appropriate title for your work. This may be difficult for some students but it does get easier with experience. The best way to come up with a good title is by brainstorming ideas and picking the best one based on what you want your audience to get out of this piece of writing.
This will be the first paragraph where you introduce exactly what you are going to talk about in your essay. Start by telling readers whether you’re going to focus on a specific event, topic, person, group, idea/theory or something else that is very general in this opening paragraph. This will grab your reader’s attention straight away because they’ll have a sense of what direction this document is going from the outset so they can determine how much effort they need to put forth before reading it.
Students should provide an overview of what the rest of their essay will be discussing.
This is where you talk about all of your points in detail, providing enough evidence to back up your claims. This section should have no less than five paragraphs because each paragraph should deal with a different point that you are making. You can split this into sub-headings if it helps keep things organized and easy to read through for the audience.
In the next section, students provide detailed information about further points they can support their claim with.
For an MLA style works cited page you only need the following: Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Name. “Article Title.” Magazine/Journal/Newspaper Title (Date published): pages.
You need to cite your sources so that your audience knows which information you have taken from other authors and where they can find the original source. This will keep plagiarism at bay, which is a bad idea if you ever want to get a job after graduation or if you’re going into business for yourself someday. The easiest way to avoid this problem is by citing every single source that you use to gather information from, whether it’s a person or an article on the internet.
Keep in mind that MLA style requires all of the entries within the works cited list to be double spaced with each entry starting a half-inch from the left margin. If there are any special punctuation symbols such as an ellipse that has three periods – one before and after – then make sure you include that in your works cited entry.
The most important thing to keep in mind throughout the entire writing process is that good grammar is always a top priority for any piece of writing. You can have brilliant ideas but if they are written incorrectly then nobody will ever see them because they’ll be turned off by the many mistakes you made when putting words on paper.
You should also check your work over for spelling errors before submitting it for grading because even the smallest mistake will affect your final score, which nobody wants to deal with when trying to earn an A in this class.
Now that you know how to write an essay in MLA format, it is time for you to actually start working on yours. If you need some help with this part, I suggest checking out the Essay Expert writing service which can provide great support and deliver everything according to your requirements and the standards of academic writing.
Happy writing! 🙂