Students often underestimate the importance of proper formatting and citing of sources for academic papers that they are required to write, but they also often overestimate the difficulty of the process of adhering to the MLA format. Basic MLA format primarily deals with two things about your paper, the format and the citing of sources. Formatting has to do with the way in which you arrange your name, date, title, page number, and other important information on your paper. It has to do with the margins that you set for your paper along with the spacing which you use for the body of your paper. The MLA also has to do with the way in which you cite your sources for research within your paper. In order to help you understand the process of these two issues we have added some links below to help you.