How to Write MLA Heading for Essays How to Write MLA Heading for Essays

MLA is an acronym which stands for Modern Language Association, an American organization that published the first MLA Style Manual in 1985. Since then, many schools, colleges and universities have adopted this writing style all across the world.

How to write an essay in MLA style can be a little tricky and requires some defined guidelines to be followed strictly, especially the heading. Next time your teacher asks you to submit an essay written in MLA style, keep the following guidelines in check:

Paper, Margin and Indent

Use only white paper that is 8 and 1/2 by 11 inches. Good quality paper should be used and printed on one side only. All pages must be typed unless hand-written assignments are required. For hand-written assignment, use blue or black ink.

The margins should be left at 1 inch from the sides, top and bottom. Leave five spaces for the tab indention setting for your paragraphs.

Avoid Titles; MLA Heading is for Title Page Only

An essay written in MLA style does not require a title but a heading that appears on the first page and a header that appears on all pages. Most articles in MLA style don’t have a title page but some people insist on adding it.

The MLA heading is set in the top left corner of the first page, 1/2 inches down from the top margin.

Contents of Heading

The heading contains 4 lines:

  1.  Student’s full name
  2. Instructor’s full name and title
  3. Class information (course name and number)
  4. The submission date in DD Month YYYY format

No part of the heading is bold, underlined or italicized.

Header for Remaining Pages

The heading appears only on the first page, on all other pages, appears a header along with your last name and page number. The header should appear in the top right corner of every page. Check examples for MLA citation style headings for sample formats.