Style Guide for Papers in Dr.

Diel’s Class (See attached example)

NOTE: This is, with a few exceptions, basic MLA style. You can find a detailed explanation of
MLA style and examples in the MLA Style Manual and on the Purdue Online Writing Lab web
page: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/11/

• Times New Roman font, in 12-point type, double-spaced.

• One-inch margins on all sides.
• Your name, the professor’s name, the course number and the date at the upper left. (See
attached sample paper).
• Title should be centered and in standard capitalization. (Capitalize the Major Words.)
• New paragraphs should be indented a half inch.
• To cite sources in your text, identify the author being cited using his/her last name and
the page number of the page where you found the information being cited. Two
acceptable methods:

1. Wordsworth wrote that “style guides are commonly used in academic writing” (243).

2. In academic writing, style guides are commonly used (Wordsworth 243).

• Include a works cited section at the end of your paper, beginning on a new page. (See
below and attached sample paper.)
• Punctuation should appear within quotation marks or parentheses if it is part of the
quotation or parenthetical statement, and outside if it is not.
• Page numbers (optional on papers of five or fewer pages in Dr. Diel’s class) in upper
right-hand corner, following the student’s last name.
• One space (not two) after periods or other sentence-ending punctuation.
• When referencing other works, use italics for longer titles, but put shorter ones in
quotation marks.
• If you need to break your paper into sections, use headings to identify each section.
Headings should be numbered and flush-left.

Style Guide for Your Paper’s Works Cited (Bibliography) Page(s)

• Sources cited by name in the text of your paper should be listed, along with more detailed
information, on a Works Cited page or pages. This should begin on a new page. (See
sample paper.)
• Citations should appear in alphabetical order, by last name of authors.
• The first line of each citation should be hanging a half inch. (The opposite of being
indented a half inch, basically. See the attached example.)
• See sample paper for details, but citations on works cited page should follow this format:
Last name, First name. “Title of Article or Paper Being Cited.” Name of Publication
Cited, XX(date) XX(Month) 2018.
Your Name Here

Dr. Stan Diel

MCOM XXXX

XX Month 2018

The Title of Your Paper Goes Here, Centered

The body of your paper goes here, in Times New Roman font, in 12-point type, double-

spaced. Your page should have one-inch margins. To set your margins, click the “layout” tab at

the top of the page, then click “margins,” then select “normal.” To select your font, click the

“Home” tab at the top of the page and then use the drop-down menu to select “Times New

Roman.” To adjust the point-size of the text, use the drop-down menu to the right of the one you

just used to choose your font. If you’ve already written part of your paper in the wrong font or

size, highlight the text and then follow the steps above to change the font or text size.

The first line of each paragraph should be indented half an inch. To adjust this and to

make your text double-spaced, choose “Format” from the bar at the top of your computer

monitor and then choose “paragraph.” In the box that pops up, find the drop-down menu labeled

“Special:” and select “First line,” then use the up and down arrows to set your indentation to

“0.5”. Then find the drop-down menu labeled “Line spacing:” and select “Double”. Now click

“OK” and you should be all set. If you’ve already written part of your paper with the line spacing

or indentation set incorrectly, highlight the text and then follow the steps above to change it.

Your citations and references need to be done in MLA style. This means that you should

put the last name of the author being cited and the page number of the page being cited in

parentheses at the end of the sentence that includes the information from that source. For

example, if this sentence included information from a 2011 Newsweek article by John Doe, the
end of the sentence would look like this (Doe 2011). There should not be a comma between the

cited author’s name and the date. Alternatively, you may credit the author by last name

somewhere in the sentence including the cited information, and then put only the page number in

the parentheses at the end of the sentence. The complete citation must also be included, in

alphabetical order, in a separate works cited section. You can find a sample works cited page at

the end of this example paper. MLA’s works cited page style is a little goofy, but here are the

basics: You should have the words “Works Cited” at the top of the page, centered. After that

your references should appear, double-spaced and in alphabetical order. Each citation in the

works cited section should begin as a new paragraph, but each one should be “hanging” a half an

inch rather than indented a half an inch. This is basically the reverse of how indentation usually

works. To achieve this, highlight all of your citations on the works cited page (but not the title at

the top), then click “Format” in the tool bar at the top of your screen. On the dropdown menu,

click “paragraph” and then, in the popup window that appears, change the selection under

“Special:” to “Hanging”. If the “By:” box does not default to 0.5” use the little arrows to change

it to 0.5”. Note: If you cite a work with more two authors your Works Cited page citation should

cite the first author as described on page 1 (last name first), but then you reverse the order of

names for the second author, using his first name first and his family name last. If you expect to

write many papers it may be worth your time to buy a copy of the MLA Handbook, which sets

out MLA style in detail.

 Works Cited

Ebert, Roger. Review of An Inconvenient Truth, directed by Davis Guggenheim. rogerebert.com, 1

June 2006, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/an-inconvenient-truth-2006. Accessed 15 June 2016.

Gowdy, John and Bill Cunningham. "Avoiding Self-organized Extinction: Toward a Co-

evolutionary Economics of Sustainability." International Journal of Sustainable Development

and World Ecology, vol. 14, no. 1, 2007, pp. 27-36.

Leroux, Marcel. “Global Warming: Myth Or Reality?: The Erring Ways of Climatology.” Springer,

2005.

Milken, Michael, et al. "On Global Warming and Financial Imbalances." New Perspectives

Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 4, 2006, p. 63.

Nordhaus, William D. "After Kyoto: Alternative Mechanisms to Control Global

Warming." American Economic Review, vol. 96, no. 2, 2006, pp. 31-34.