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MLA 9 Formatting for English Composition Essays
Upload the argument essays, rhetorical analyses and research essays you already wrote. It comes back in MLA 9th edition with a rubric report your instructor would recognise.
English composition classes grade MLA formatting as strictly as the writing: the four-line heading block, the running head of surname and page number, a plain centred title, double spacing with no extra paragraph space, and a Works Cited page with hanging indents in alphabetical order. Veermat reads the Word document you already wrote for your composition course and rebuilds its layout to MLA 9 — Times New Roman 12, 1-inch margins, ½-inch indents, Works Cited on a new page — then hands you an itemised compliance report: what passes, and the few things only you can decide, such as a citation with no matching entry. Your wording never changes. Checking is free; the editable .docx downloads with Pro.
Real editable .docx ~30 seconds per document Free to try
Last updated: July 4, 2026 · Reviewed by the Veermat team
Your wording never changes, only the formatting. Formatting and previewing are free — Pro downloads the editable file.
How it works
How to format an English essay in MLA 9 in four steps
The fastest way to format an English essay in MLA 9 without manual copy-paste, screenshots, or formatting cleanup.
- Step 1
Upload your Word document
Drop in the messy .docx you want cleaned up. Your file is processed only to format it and is never used to train models.
- Step 2
AI reads the structure
The AI detects headings, body text, lists, and tables, and finds inconsistent styling, without changing any of your wording.
- Step 3
Formatting is fixed
Heading styles, alignment, spacing, fonts, lists, indentation, and margins are made consistent across the whole document.
- Step 4
Download the clean .docx
Get a still-editable Word file that opens in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, and LibreOffice: clean formatting, your words unchanged.
In short
To format a English composition paper in MLA 9, upload the Word file to Veermat: it applies Times New Roman 12, double spacing, 1-inch margins and ½-inch indents, keeps your name, instructor, course and date as the heading block, builds the surname-and-page running head, centres the title plain, puts Works Cited on a new page with hanging indents in alphabetical order, and cross-checks every in-text citation against the list. You get an itemised MLA 9 report; nothing in your text is rewritten.
How do I format an English essay in MLA 9?
Times New Roman 12, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, ½-inch first-line indents. Your name, your instructor, the course and the date on four lines at the top left; your surname and the page number top right on every page; the title centred and plain on the next line; Works Cited on its own page, alphabetical, with hanging indents. Upload the Word file to Veermat and it applies all of this and reports what still needs your attention.
Built for ENG 101 and 102
Composition rubrics mark the heading block first — this checks it first
Argument essays, rhetorical analyses and research essays come with an MLA rubric attached, and the first items on it are the four-line heading, the running head and the plain centred title. The report Veermat returns follows that rubric line by line, then the Works Cited page: own page, alphabetical, hanging indents, and whether every author-page citation has an entry.
- Heading block kept flush left, date checked for day-month-year order
- Surname + page number in the header of every page, as a page field
- Works Cited on a new page, sorted, hanging indents
- Three-author citations flagged to become “et al.”
Features
Why people choose Veermat to format an English essay in MLA 9
Heading block and running head
Your name, instructor, course and date stay as four lines at the top left; your surname and the page number go in the top-right header of every page as a real page field; the title is centred and set plain.
Works Cited done the way it is marked
Works Cited moves to its own page under a centred plain heading, every entry gets a hanging indent and double spacing, wrapped entries are rejoined, and the list is sorted alphabetically.
Citations cross-checked
Every author-page citation is matched to a Works Cited entry and every entry to a citation. Missing sources, uncited entries and three-author citations that should read “et al.” are flagged for you to decide.
English composition papers, not generic text
Block quotations keep their indent, section headings keep their order, and your content, tables and figures are preserved exactly.
Use cases
Where it helps most
English composition assignments
Argument essays, rhetorical analyses and research essays that must arrive in MLA 9 with a heading block and a Works Cited page.
The night before it is due
Upload, read the report, fix the two things it flags, download. Faster than re-reading the MLA handbook at midnight.
After rubric feedback
When an essay came back marked down for formatting, run it through and see exactly which MLA rules were missed.
Long papers
Twenty pages with section headings and forty entries on the Works Cited page format the same way as three pages, in seconds.
Why not just copy-paste?
Veermat vs. doing it manually
Fixing formatting by hand takes ages and rarely comes out consistent. Here's the difference.
Output quality
What the cleaned document looks like
Every run produces a clean, still-editable .docx, never a rewrite. Here's what you get.
- Times New Roman 12 pt, double-spaced, 1-inch margins, ½-inch first-line indents
- Four-line heading block top left, surname and page number top right on every page, title centred and plain
- Works Cited on its own page, hanging indents, alphabetical order, in-text citations cross-checked
- An itemised MLA 9 compliance report, and your wording untouched
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Frequently asked questions
My essay has a title page from a template. Is that wrong?+
In MLA 9 it is: the heading block replaces the title page. The report flags a title page and the formatter moves the text back to page 1 under the heading block.
Does it add my surname to the header?+
Yes. The surname on the first line of your heading block becomes the running head with a page-number field, on every page. An existing header is never overwritten.
Will it change my citations?+
No. It formats the Works Cited page and reports mismatches, but it never rewrites a citation or invents a source.
Upload the paper you already wrote
Free to format and check. See the before/after and the itemised MLA 9 report, then download the editable .docx with Pro.