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Essays were selected as examples of excellent student writing that use MLA style for citing sources. Essays have been lightly edited. If your institution subscribes to MLA Handbook Plus , you can access annotated versions of the essays published from 2022 to 2024.
This resource contains a sample MLA paper that adheres to the 2016 updates. To download the MLA sample paper, click this link.
For starters, the essay is in MLA format. That means it follows the style manual of the Modern Language Association, which tells you how to format the paper itself and every source you cite. You’ll also see notes like how long a paragraph should be, how to use commas properly, and how to correctly punctuate a title.
Writing an MLA style paper and need something to reference? Check out Excelsior Online Writing Lab's collection of MLA sample papers.
MLA Style specifies guidelines for formatting manuscripts and citing research in writing. MLA Style also provides writers with a system for referencing their sources through parenthetical citation in their essays and Works Cited pages.
This article will explain MLA style citation, give examples of MLA formatting for specific aspects of references, provide an MLA format example for each category of source material, and share essay formatting tips that our editors have learned over the years.
MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.
