1. Take NOTICE of the location of this PPT!
MLA BASICS
Take NOTICE of the location of this PPT!

2. No title page
The required information is included at the top left margin of page one, double spaced, with 1 inch margins: Student Name Teacher Name Course Title Date

3. Double-spacing An MLA paper is double-spaced, period.
Everything, even a long quotation, is double-spaced.

4. One-inch margins
An MLA paper uses one-inch margins on all four sides of each page.
The exception is the header, which is flush right and on-half inch down from the top of each page.
Note: The right margin of your paper should be ragged right and not justified.

6. Parenthetical Documentation and Works Cited
At the end of an MLA paper, there is a list of every work you have cited, showing exactly where you found each quotation, paraphrase, or idea by someone else. These works are listed alphabetically by author’s last names. Note: A name in a parenthetical MUST appear on the Works Cited page.

8. Works Cited

11. Parenthetical Citation
= the writer’s last name followed by the page number: (Benton 355)

12. Parentheticals come at the end of a sentence, after the quotations and before the punctuation.
I.E. The researcher claimed, “The Equal Rights Amendment shifted power from the frogs to the princesses” (Benton 355).

13. *Sometimes you will not have a quote in a sentence, but even if you have taken an idea from the work you MUST parenthetically cite your source = PARAPHRASE.
I.E. The Equal Rights Amendment incorporated frogs’ opinions and the rarely-heard opinions of many princesses (Benton 355).

14. short quotation enclosed in quotation marks
followed by one blank space
followed by a parenthetical documentation including the author’s last name and page number (no comma between them)
and the period after the parenthetical
The researcher claimed, “The Equal Rights Amendment shifted power from the frogs to the princesses” (Benton 355).

15. long quotation (5 lines or more)
not enclosed by quotation marks
is indented ten spaces – exactly ten, not nine or eleven
followed by two blank spaces and the parenthetical
In a long quotation the period comes at the end of the quote, before the parenthetical.

16. long quotation (5 lines or more)
and the conclusions proved the princesses’ theory right: When the frogs gathered to discuss their perspective over the setting sun, many of them realized that the princesses’ power rest in their glitter not their curly hair; one brave, elderly frog suggested collaborating with the princesses. (Benton 355)

17. When you quote words by someone else, you must not misquote.
You may not change a single word unless you follow two rules for such changes:
you use ellipsis (…) to show an omission, or
(2) brackets [like this] to show added or inserted words.

18. You are not required to quote entire sentences; you may quote parts of sentences, so long as you don’t omit words in a deceptive way that distorts meaning.

19. Taken from:
Thompson, Michael Clay. Advanced Academic Writing. 1. Unionville, NY: Royal Fireworks Press, Print.