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What is this MLA works cited page template?

This is a free LaTeX template for an MLA works cited page that follows the MLA Handbook, 9th edition: letter paper with one-inch margins, 12-point Times-style text, double spacing throughout, a running header with your last name and the page number, the heading "Works Cited" centred at the top, and every entry flush left with a half-inch hanging indent. It ships with eight correctly punctuated sample entries (a book, a chapter in an edited collection, a translated book, a journal article with a DOI, a newspaper article read online, a print journal article, a film and a web page) that you can copy and adapt.

The document class is plain article; no special MLA class is needed. Formatting comes from four standard packages: geometry for the margins, newtxtext for a Times New Roman look, setspace for double spacing and fancyhdr for the header. Entries are written with a small \entry{...} command defined in the preamble, so there is nothing to install and the file compiles with pdfLaTeX on any TeX distribution.

MLA 9 works cited formatting rules

Use this checklist against your own page. Everything in the left column is set up for you in the template; the right column says which line does it.

The nine core elements, in order

MLA 9 builds every entry from the same list of core elements. Include the ones that apply to your source, in this order, with the punctuation shown:

1. Author. Surname, First name. Two authors: Surname, First, and First Surname. Three or more: Surname, First, et al.
2. Title of source. Italic for a self-contained work, in quotation marks for a work inside a container.
3. Title of container, in italics: the journal, anthology, newspaper, website or streaming service that holds the source.
4. Other contributors, such as "edited by", "translated by" or "directed by".
5. Version, for example 2nd ed. or director's cut.
6. Number, as vol. 12, no. 3 or season 2, episode 4.
7. Publisher, omitting business words such as Inc. and abbreviating University Press to UP.
8. Publication date, day Month year, with months longer than four letters abbreviated (Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.).
9. Location. Page range (pp. 55–61), DOI or URL. End the entry with a period.

Elements 3 to 9 can repeat when a source sits inside two containers, for example a journal article (container 1: the journal) retrieved from a database (container 2: JSTOR). An access date ("Accessed 18 Oct. 2026.") is optional but recommended for web pages that have no publication date or that change often.

Section-by-section walkthrough

Preamble: page, font, spacing and header

\documentclass[12pt,letterpaper]{article}
\usepackage[margin=1in,headheight=15pt,headsep=21pt]{geometry}
\usepackage{newtxtext}      % Times-like 12 pt text font
\usepackage{setspace}       % double spacing
\usepackage{fancyhdr}       % running header
\usepackage[hidelinks]{hyperref}   % also loads url
\urlstyle{same}

\newcommand{\lastname}{Smith}
\doublespacing
\raggedright               % MLA: do not justify the right margin
\hyphenpenalty=10000       % MLA: turn automatic hyphenation off
\frenchspacing
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{}
\fancyhead[R]{\lastname\ \thepage}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}

Change \lastname to your own surname; it is the only field in the header. headheight plus headsep add up to half an inch, which puts the header where MLA wants it. \raggedright and \hyphenpenalty=10000 give the left-aligned, unhyphenated text the handbook asks for (it says not to justify the right margin and to turn automatic hyphenation off). \frenchspacing gives a single space after periods, matching the look of a paper typed in a word processor, and \urlstyle{same} keeps URLs in the body font rather than typewriter; the url package that hyperref loads lets a long URL break after a slash, period or underscore, never in the middle of a word. hidelinks stops hyperref from drawing coloured boxes around links in the PDF.

The \entry command

\newcommand{\entry}[1]{%
  \par\noindent\hangindent=0.5in\hangafter=1 #1\par}

Each works cited entry is one paragraph. \hangindent=0.5in indents every line after the first by half an inch and \hangafter=1 says the indent starts on line two. Because \parindent is set to zero and \parskip to zero, the first line sits flush left and the spacing between entries is the same double spacing as inside them, exactly as MLA requires.

The entries

The body is the centred heading followed by eight \entry lines in alphabetical order. Note how the film Parasite, which has no author, is alphabetised under P by its title, and how the Purdue OWL page uses the organisation as author. Replace the samples with your own sources, keeping one \entry{...} per source.

Common MLA entry formats

Book

\entry{Austen, Jane. \textit{Pride and Prejudice}. Edited by Pat Rogers, Cambridge UP, 2006.}

Pattern: Author. Title. Other contributors, Publisher, Year. Drop the editor clause for a plain edition; add "2nd ed.," before the publisher for a numbered edition; list an e-book as "E-book ed." in the version slot.

Journal article with a DOI

\entry{Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. “What Is Digital Humanities and What's It Doing in English Departments?” \textit{ADE Bulletin}, no.\ 150, 2010, pp. 55--61, \url{https://doi.org/10.1632/ade.150.55}.}

Pattern: Author. "Article Title." Journal, vol. X, no. Y, Year, pp. A--B, DOI. Use -- for the en dash in page ranges and no.\ 150 (a backslash-space) so LaTeX does not treat the abbreviation's period as the end of a sentence. If there is no DOI, give the database name as a second container (JSTOR, URL) or the article URL.

Web page

\entry{Purdue Online Writing Lab. “MLA Formatting and Style Guide.” \textit{Purdue OWL}, Purdue U, \url{owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/...}. Accessed 18 Oct. 2026.}

Pattern: Author or organisation. "Page Title." Site Name, Publisher (omit if the same as the site name; abbreviate University to U), Date, URL. Accessed Date. MLA 9 strips the protocol from URLs, so write www.example.com/... rather than https://www.example.com/....

Chapter in an edited book

\entry{Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution.” \textit{Performing Feminisms}, edited by Sue-Ellen Case, Johns Hopkins UP, 1990, pp. 270--82.}

Pattern: Chapter Author. "Chapter Title." Book Title, edited by Editor Name, Publisher, Year, pp. A--B. The same shape covers a poem or story in an anthology and an essay in a collection. For a film, start with the title in italics unless your discussion focuses on one person's contribution: \textit{Parasite}. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, CJ Entertainment, 2019.

How to customize the template

• Append it to your essay. Copy everything between \begin{document} and \end{document} to the end of your paper after a \newpage, and move the preamble lines (packages, \lastname, \entry) into the essay's preamble. The page number then continues automatically.
• Automate it with biblatex-mla. For a long paper, keep your sources in a .bib file and let LaTeX build the list: add \usepackage[style=mla,backend=biber]{biblatex} and \addbibresource{refs.bib} to the preamble, cite with \autocite{key}, and end with \printbibliography[title={Works Cited}]. The style handles the hanging indent, alphabetisation and punctuation for you; you lose the ability to hand-tune a single entry.
• Font. newtxtext is the maintained Times clone. If your distribution lacks it, \usepackage{mathptmx} or the older \usepackage{times} give the same look. If your instructor allows another legible font, swap the package; nothing else changes.
• Paper size. Outside North America replace letterpaper with a4paper in both the class options and geometry; MLA does not prescribe a paper size, only the margins.
• Works Consulted. If you must also list sources you read but did not cite, add a second centred heading "Works Consulted" after the first list and continue with more \entry lines.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

• Entries not alphabetised. LaTeX prints \entry lines in the order you write them. Sort by the first word of the entry, ignoring A, An and The. Works by the same author go in title order, with three em dashes replacing the name after the first entry; in LaTeX type ---{}---{}---., since a bare --- prints only one em dash.
• Straight quotation marks. Typing "Title" prints straight marks, not the curly opening and closing pair MLA expects. Use the curly characters “ and ” as the template does, or TeX's ``Title''.
• Extra space between entries. A blank line before an \entry is harmless, but any \vspace or \bigskip breaks the uniform double spacing. Remove them.
• Bold or underlined heading. MLA wants "Works Cited" in plain text, the same size as the body. Do not wrap it in \textbf or \section*, which would enlarge it, and avoid the center environment, which adds vertical space above and below the heading; the template uses \centering inside a group instead.
• Overfull hbox warnings on URLs. \url breaks a URL only after punctuation, so a very long run of letters with no slash or period can poke into the margin. If that happens, add \usepackage{xurl} after hyperref to allow a break at any character for that one entry's sake.
• Page number restarts at 1. When the works cited page is compiled as its own file it is page 1. Either append it to the essay or set \setcounter{page}{n} before the heading.
• "Undefined control sequence \entry". You pasted the entries into another document without the \newcommand from the preamble. Copy that definition too.

How to compile the works cited page

1. In Octree: click Open as template above. The page opens with a live preview; change \lastname, replace the sample entries, or paste a source and ask the AI assistant to format it as an MLA 9 entry.
2. In Overleaf: create a blank project, paste the source into main.tex and recompile. The default pdfLaTeX compiler is correct; every package used is in a standard TeX Live install.
3. Locally: save as works-cited.tex and run:

   pdflatex works-cited.tex
   # or, with biblatex-mla:
   latexmk -pdf works-cited.tex

   One pdfLaTeX pass is enough for the manual version; biblatex needs the biber run that latexmk performs automatically.

Related templates

Frequently asked questions

What is an MLA works cited page?

It is the list of every source you cited in an MLA-style paper, placed on its own page at the end. Each entry gives the core elements the MLA Handbook (9th edition) asks for, in order: author, title of source, title of container, other contributors, version, number, publisher, publication date and location. The page is headed Works Cited, double spaced, alphabetised, and every entry has a half-inch hanging indent. In-text citations in the body (Author page) point to these entries.

What is the difference between a works cited page and a bibliography?

A works cited page lists only the sources you actually cite in the paper. A bibliography (or Works Consulted, in MLA terms) also lists material you read but did not cite. MLA papers normally end with a Works Cited page; add a separate Works Consulted list only if your instructor asks for one.

How do I make a hanging indent in LaTeX?

Set \hangindent to the indent width and \hangafter to 1 at the start of the paragraph, which this template wraps in the \entry command: \newcommand{\entry}[1]{\par\noindent\hangindent=0.5in\hangafter=1 #1\par}. Every line after the first is then indented by 0.5 inches. There is no need for the hanging package, and the trick works in any document class.

Does the works cited page need a page number and running header?

Yes. MLA 9 asks for your last name and the page number half an inch from the top right corner of every page, including the works cited page, which continues the numbering of the essay. The template prints them with fancyhdr. If you compile the page separately, set the counter with \setcounter{page}{n} so it shows the correct number.

Can LaTeX generate MLA citations automatically?

Yes, with the biblatex-mla package. Load \usepackage[style=mla,backend=biber]{biblatex}, point it at your .bib file with \addbibresource, cite with \autocite{key} in the text, and print the list with \printbibliography[title={Works Cited}]. Compile with pdflatex, biber, then pdflatex twice, or let latexmk handle it. The manual \entry approach in this template is simpler for a short paper and lets you control the punctuation exactly.

What font and spacing does MLA require?

MLA 9 asks for a legible font in which regular and italic styles are clearly different, typically 12-point Times New Roman, double spacing throughout with no extra space between entries, one-inch margins on all sides, and left-aligned text with automatic hyphenation turned off. The template sets these with the newtxtext font package, setspace, geometry, \raggedright and \hyphenpenalty.