When referencing a short story, put it in quotes. That also goes for poems, essays, chapters and articles.

Underline books.

Italicize foreign words.

For your own title, upper case on all important words. Do not use special punctuation unless you are referring to a book poem, play, article, etc.

quick question! I’m writing a research paper. And I would like to start my paper with a quote. However this quote although is relevant to my paper, I don’t intent to explain it write away, it’s more like an implied statement. So a traditional MLA paper is as follows, of course double spaced. Names Professor’s name Course Date Title indention– Start paragraph So, I have the impression that if I want start with a quote on top of my paper it would go in the following way: Names Professor’s name Course Date Quote Title Indentation—– starts paragraph. Please let me know what I should do! I really like this quote and it will make a good “heading” for the paper. Also, is it supposed to be double spaced? italicized? same font 12? Thank you soooo much in advanced! I’ve done research on this topic for so long. I started with my MLA booklet but didn’t find any answers.

When you reference it in a paper or article, you put it in quotes, like “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Italics and underlining are for books and plays, or other longer works. If you’re just putting a title at the top of a short story you’ve written, it’s entirely up to you!