How to Write an Outline in MLA Form

Modern Language Association (MLA) publications provide style, formatting and documentation guidance for writers. Following their advice makes you appear credible and makes writing easier to read. Teachers often ask students, especially humanities students, to use the MLA style. As part of writing a paper, teachers sometimes also require an outline. Creating one in MLA form means making an outline as you ordinarily would and formatting it according to MLA style.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Type your title and center it.

2. Drop two spaces down to start the body of the outline, which will be single-spaced.

3. Set up the paragraphs so they are aligned on the left margin of your page with no indentation for the first line in a paragraph.

4. Check to see if your word processor has an automatic outlining feature that creates succeeding levels labeled "I.", "A.", "1.", "a.", "(1)" and "(a)". If so, familiarize yourself with how to use the feature.

5. Type Roman numerals I through III if you are creating the outline from scratch, with each in a new paragraph and each followed by a period.

6. Type a space and sample words after "III." The beginning of your sample text marks the left alignment of all text following Roman numerals. Create a tab that will jump to it and use the hanging indent feature of your word processing program to make sure that if text runs over one line, it will align properly.

7. Type a paragraph return, tab forward to the indent, then type "A.", followed by a space and text. Set up your hanging indent as before and create a tab.

8. Repeat the step for the "1.", "a.", "(1)" and "(a)" sub-levels so that each successive sub-level lines up on its left side with the text of the level that precedes it. This is your template, properly formatted and ready to use.

Tips & Warnings

• The automatic outline feature in some word processing programs is called a list feature.
• Some automatic outlines let you customize the labels preceding each entry, so even if the automatic outline or list feature of your word processor doesn't have the right sub-level headings, you can still use it.
• Some teachers will want more than a topic outline; they will want short sentences or paragraph entries for each outline entry you make. If your teacher requires this, use the same formatting for the outline itself and use punctuation within the text of your entries.

References

• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Fifth Edition; Joseph Gibaldi; 1999

Resources

• Modern Language Association
• Developing an Outline
• Guide to Writing Research Papers: MLA Style

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