LaTeX MLA Template

Ryan Alcock's MLA package

Ryan Alcock authored a package that makes typesetting MLA format papers in LaTeX a snap. Little preamble and very easy to use.

Here's the link to Alcock's style file. Copy the whole page, paste into a text editor and save as mla.sty. Once that's done, you can always invoke the package in your document.

MLA Template

Here's my template for MLA papers in LaTeX. You can easily customize this and make changes to adapt to other formats. I discovered Alcock's package while doing this.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}

%
%Margin - 1 inch on all sides
%
\usepackage[letterpaper]{geometry}
\geometry{top=1.0in, bottom=1.0in, left=1.0in, right=1.0in}

%
%Doublespacing
%
\usepackage{setspace}
\doublespacing

% 
%Babel package for multiple language typesetting
%
%\usepackage[english,german]{babel}
%\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
%\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}

%
%Setting the font
%
\usepackage{times}

%
%Rotating tables (e.g. sideways when too long)
%
\usepackage{rotating}

%
%For multiple rows in tables
%
\usepackage{multirow}

% 
%Line numbering in verse environment
%
\usepackage{lineno} 

%
%Fancy-header package to modify header/page numbering (insert last name)
%
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\lhead{} 
\chead{} 
\rhead{Last name \thepage} 
\lfoot{} 
\cfoot{} 
\rfoot{} 
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} 
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt} 
%To make sure we actually have header 0.5in away from top edge
%12pt is one-sixth of an inch. Subtract this from 0.5in to get headsep value
\setlength\headsep{0.333in}

%
%Works cited environment
%(to start, use \begin{workscited...}, each entry preceded by \bibent)
% - from Ryan Alcock's MLA style file
%
\newcommand{\bibent}{\noindent \hangindent 40pt}
\newenvironment{workscited}{\newpage \begin{center} Works Cited \end{center}}{\newpage }

%
%Begin document
%
\begin{document}
\begin{flushleft}

%%%%First page name, class, etc
Name\\
Professor \\
Class \\
Date\\

%%%%Title
\begin{center}
Title
\end{center}

%%%%Changes paragraph indentation to 0.5in
\setlength{\parindent}{0.5in} 

%%%%Begin body of paper here

%%%%Works cited
\begin{workscited}

\bibent
author's last name, first name.  or ``Paper Title."  \textit{Book Title}.  City: Publisher, Year of publication. Print OR Web date

\end{workscited}

\end{flushleft}
\end{document}
\}