Edmonds CC Writing Center | MUK 113 MLA Formatting: Google Docs
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MLA FORMATTING: GOOGLE DOCS
Many instructors want you to format your papers according to MLA guidelines, and it can be
hard to remember how to do all of these things until you’ve done them multiple times. You can
use this guide and the list below as a checklist to follow as you format your essays in Google
Docs.
Your paper is in MLA format if it:
□ has 1 inch margins on all sides
□ is typed in a legible (easily readable) font—like Times New Roman, Calibri, or Cambria
□ is entirely in font size 12
□ is double-spaced throughout the entire document
□ begins every paragraph with an indentation
□ includes a header with your last name/surname and page numbers on the right side
□ begins the first page with your name, the class information & date on the left side
□ has a title centered on the first page before the essay begins
□ includes a Works Cited page at the end of the essay with alphabetized MLA citations
You have two options available to you when it comes to writing an MLA formatted paper in
Google Docs. One is to format your paper yourself in a blank Google Doc, using the steps you
will find on this handout. The other is to use a template provided by Google Docs which has all
the correct MLA formatting already set up for you. The template makes things very easy! But
it’s also good to learn how to do some of the formatting yourself.
To access the template from your Edmonds CC gmail account (@edmail.edcc.edu), you need
to be logged in to your Edmail account. Go to Google Docs and instead of clicking to start a
Blank document, look above to where it says Template Gallery. Click on Template Gallery,
make sure that General is selected, and in the Education section, find the MLA Report
template. Click on that and a new Google Doc will open; the new Doc will have information
already typed that you will then replace with your own text, keeping the same formatting.
The first addition you will have to make is typing your own last name/surname in the header,
which you can do by clicking next to the page number, placing your cursor in front of the page
number, and typing your last name/surname with one space after it before the page number.
When you’re finished, click anywhere outside the header and it will be set and saved.
The template document has a lot of Latin text to show different formatting options for papers
with sections and subsections. If your paper is meant to have sections, these will be useful. If
not, ignore all of the formatting the template shows in the “body” of the paper after the first
introductory paragraph. Skip down to the Works Cited and use that as a guide for your
citations. You will probably still want to refer to the Hanging Indents section of this handout
to format your citations properly.