The MLA (Modern Language Association) is an academic and professional parenthetical (in text) citation system. The MLA is a guideline that informs writers both how to format their overall paper, perform research, and to cite the works of others in academic and professional research.

The general paper formatting for the MLA style follows a series of suggested/recommended/required guidelines if one is to use the MLA style. In brief, these guidelines are to use standard paper size if printing your research or article or, alternatively, as most people do today, to use standard word processing formats relative to paper size. In North America this standard paper size is typically eight and half inches by eleven inches (8.5 by 11). Additionally, you will also utilize an accepted font such as Times New Roman, Arial, or New Courier and all of these fonts are generally sized 12 point. The margins of your paper are almost always set at one inch (1 inch) all the way around (top, bottom, left and right). A header is used to contain the page number and the number is generally set a half inch from the top of the paper in the header. Finally, a bibliography sheet is always included that contains the list of works that have been cited within your paper and this is termed the “Works Cited” page and there are even software programs that will perform this formatting for you but be careful, these do make mistakes. 

The in-text citation consists of a parenthetical citation system in which the last name of the author or authors or, alternatively, the first word of a title if there is no author, is placed in parentheses after the quotation or referral to a work in the text and, if known, the page number or paragraph number is listed. This would appear in the following manner (Johnson 18) and is discussed in numerous blogs about the issue. Johnson would be the last name of the author and it would refer to a work on the Works Cited page that is listed alphabetically such as:

Johnson, Ted. “All About the MLA Citation System.” China Doll Publishing , 03/21(2008).

The Works Cited page itself is, as mentioned, listed alphabetically, and the title of the work, if it is a magazine, journal or paper, for example, is in quotation marks while the title of the journal, magazine or newspaper is underlined. In the case of a book, the title of the book is underlined and nothing is in quotation marks, as in the following:

Johnson, Ted. All About the MLA Citation System. China Doll Publishing, New York (2008).

This is just a brief synopsis of the MLA citation system but it gives you a bare bones ability to accurately cite your work in your research paper or article in order to avoid accusations of plagiarism. However, if you don't want to worry about this and other systems, you can always just purchase a prewritten essay or term paper that is already formatted in MLA citation style.