The purpose of the MLA cover page is to provide your research paper relevant authorial information. As the first page of your document, it includes the title of your research paper, your name and other relevant information, such as the date, the course and the name of your professor. The MLA cover page also gives your research paper structure and a more organized format. It must be noted, however, that unless it is specifically requested by your professor, you do not need to include a title or cover page.
For your MLA cover page, the title of your research paper must be placed about one third below the top margin of the page. You complete name must appear at the center of the page, thus it must be placed two or three inches below the tile, and your class information or affiliation must be placed about two inches below your name. Do not italicize, underline, or place the title of your paper in quotation marks. Just as you would in the body of your text, you only need to use quotation marks or italics when you are referring to other works in your title, for example: Nietzschean Themes in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Ayn Rand’s Repudiation of Nietzschean Philosophy in The Fountainhead. Additionally, you only need type the essay title in standard capitalization.
On the first page following the MLA cover page, you need to type in the title of your work one more time. There should be a double space between the title of your paper and the first line of your text.
In accordance to the MLA style guidelines, you are also required to create the corresponding MLA header in your paper. The MLA header includes your last name, followed by a space with the corresponding page number, and must be placed in the upper right-hand corner of your page. All the following pages must be numbered accordingly with Arabic numerals, approximately one half inch from the top section of the page, and aligned to the right margin.