Whether you are in college or high school, at one point, you will write a research paper for an assignment. And the procedure with research papers is that you have to include sources for the research you make. Citation of sources differs depending on the requirements of the assignment. The popular citing styles are the Chicago style, APA, and MLA. These styles ensure that you give credit and mentions to the material owners to save you from plagiarizing other people’s content. It also makes it easy for the reader to find the use of the sources within the paper. Let us take a look at MLA formatting.

The acronym stands for Modern Language Association in full. It is very useful in cultural studies, literature, foreign language, comparative literature, and English studies. It gives a proper guideline for documentation and writing of research on English literature and humanities. 

Formatting the front page

The MLA rules have four essential elements to apply as you set up a research paper. Ensure that the page margin is exactly one inch on both sides. Also, double-space the lines. This setup makes your text readable and allows whoever is reading to neatly ass comments. Ensure that your document has a header and a footer. The header should have a page number and your last name. It helps the reader track the ordering of the pages and gives it an aesthetic value. Finally, the top-left corner of the first page should have your course information, such as the due date of the assignment, the name of the course, the teacher’s name, and your full name.

In-text citation

There are two sections you can include the references, and they are at the end of the page or quotes used within the paper. The citations you make within the paper using quotes is what we call in-text citation. A common use of this format is when you directly quote the source or reference the author or the title. 

You should also put down the page number and the writer’s last name and enclose it with a parenthesis after making a quote from it. If you have the author’s name within the quote, you will only need to include the page number in parenthesis. 

Detailed information

• When giving references inside your paper, it should educate the perusers about the starting point of the sources from where you are referring to your data. The reference page is known as the “Works Cited”. This page is the place where the creator offers credit to the source. Things set inside a reference include a sequence of the writer’s last name, article title, and date published.
• Electronic sources: Electronic sources use the innovator’s name and page number or zone number for in-substance references. It is just if the data does not have page or area numbers by any strategies. By at that point, you would remember the creator’s name for the part after you have alluded to the recorded data.

Choosing the right in-text citation method                

We use parenthesis in most cases for citations meaning that they need to be added at the end of the sentence. However, if one of the information that should be in the citation is already in the quoted text, you do not need to add it again in the citation. 

How to arrange in-text citation

Sometimes you might find more than one sources that you need to cite in the same text. If you do not place it correctly, you might end up confusing the readers. To avoid this, you should give the short title to identify which citation they refer to.

Conclusion

There are several formatting styles, and MLA is one of the most used. MLA is quite time-consuming, especially if you are dealing with several references. The above tips will help you find it a bit easier to cite your sources.