Academic-paper titles do not have one context-free quotation-mark rule. Purdue OWL says the title on your own MLA paper is centered without quotation marks or italics, while MLA Style Center guidance puts an unpublished student paper’s title in quotation marks when it is cited.
ReviewedEvidence2 sourcesSectionWriting & Style
Quick answer
Not on the title line of your own MLA paper. When citing another unpublished student paper, however, MLA puts the cited paper’s title in quotation marks.
Key details
Core Issuewhether an academic-paper title should be put in quotation marks
Registeracademic, institutional, edited, and style-governed writing
RuleThe answer depends on context in MLA style: Purdue OWL says the title on your own paper is centered without quotation marks or italics, while MLA Style Center guidance places the title of an unpublished student paper in quotation marks when that paper is cited.
Important caveats
Scope Boundary
“Academic paper” is not one formatting context. The title displayed on the paper itself and the title represented inside a citation can follow different rules.
Further guidance
Recommendation
Separate document formatting from citation formatting: use plain centered title text on your own MLA paper, but quotation marks around the title of an unpublished paper when citing it.
Sources and evidence
Sources are shown with the role they play in this guide. Historical or style-sensitive claims are kept within the evidence boundary described above.
Article titles are normally placed in quotation marks in MLA-style prose because an article is a shorter work contained within a larger publication. Required house or citation styles can differ.
MLA guidance for conference presentations treats the paper title as the title of source and the conference as the container, with the paper title in quotation marks. Published proceedings should be handled according to the version consulted.
MLA treats a blog post as a short-form work contained within a larger site, so the blog-post title is normally placed in quotation marks. The title of the larger website or blog is styled separately.
In common academic style guidance, a chapter title is treated as a shorter work contained within a book and is placed in quotation marks. Title styling is style-guide dependent. Follow the required academic, publication, or house style if it specifies a different convention.
MLA styles an essay that forms part of a larger independent work in quotation marks. The rule is a publishing/style convention and can vary with context or another required style system.
MLA Style Center examples distinguish titled and untitled interviews. A genuine interview title is placed in quotation marks; an untitled interview is handled descriptively instead of being given an invented title.
MLA’s guidance for online works explicitly treats lecture titles as quoted titles. Untitled or informally described course lectures need separate handling rather than an invented formal title.
MLA Style Center examples place an individual podcast episode title in quotation marks and treat the podcast series as the container, so episode and series titles should not be formatted as though they were the same title level.
