Posted: August 18th, 2022

APA vs MLA

APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association)

The most common writing styles are APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association). Most social sciences, such as psychology and education, use the APA style of writing. On the other hand, MLA is used in the arts and humanities, like literature and language. When we compare APA and MLA, we can see that they are similar and different in a number of ways. First of all, both APA and MLA writing styles are common ways to give credit to the people who wrote different sources of information. In other words, they are used to give credit where credit is due and keep people from plagiarizing. Our professional writers know how to write in both APA and MLA formats. This means that when we work on your academic paper, we can use either of these two writing styles. These two citations are similar in that at the end of the given paper, a list of the materials used is expected. This kind of information should be put in alphabetical order. Also, both the APA and MLA styles of writing have clear rules about how a paper should be formatted.
What’s different about APA and MLA?
It’s also important to note that these two styles of citation are not the same in a number of ways. First of all, the author-date format is used in APA style. In other words, if you want to cite a paper written in this style, you need to include the year it was published and the last name of the author or authors. One difference between APA and MLA is that MLA uses the author page number system, while APA doesn’t. This is because you have to give the last name of the author and the page number where you found the specific information you used in your paper. The second difference between APA and MLA writing styles is how the list of information used is labeled on the page with the list. When citing in APA style, you use the word “references,” but when citing in MLA style, you use the word “works cited.” We promise that our writers who teach students how to use these two ways to write academic papers know the differences between them very well. This means that when it comes to APA vs. MLA, we can always help you make the important choice of which style to use.

Other Citation Styles Short Notes:

There are various citation styles used in academic writing. They include the APA, MLA, Harvard, and Chicago styles. These citation styles are used to indicate, to the reader, that the information cited originated from elsewhere. Each of the four citation styles is cited in different ways.

The American Psychological Association, commonly abbreviated as APA, is the most commonly used guideline for academic writing.  An APA citation entails a snapshot of the information contained in the reference. For the intext citations, writers should include the author’s or authors’ last name and the year of publication of the used material. In the case that the material being used has three or more authors, the writer should, at the first citation of the material, cite all the authors’ last names and the year of publication. These constituents of the APA in-text citation should be separated using a comma. However, for the subsequent citation of such a material, an individual should cite the last name of the first author followed by “et al.” and the year. On the other hand, the references citations should start on a new page of a document. The reference entries should be alphabetized with all the different intext citations being accounted for in the reference list.

The MLA citation style is another style that is used in academic writing. This style follows an author-page format which means that the writer is expected to include the last name of the author and the page number from which the cited paraphrase or quotation originated from for sources that have a maximum of three authors. For sources, such as websites, that don’t have page numbers, the initials “n.p” should be included. Sources that have more than three authors, therefore, should be cited using the last name of the first author followed by the phrase “et al”. These citations are expected to occur after the paraphrase or quotation but before the full stop. The writer should use a new page for the works cited page. All in-text citation entries included in the document should be included in this page in alphabetical order.

Another citation style frequently used in academic writing is the Havard citation style. The particulars included in the in-text citations for the Harvard referencing style include the author’s or editor’s last name, year of publication of the source, and the page number from where the quotation or paraphrase can be found. For sources, such as websites, that don’t have page numbers, the initials “n.p” should be included. This is the case for sources that have a maximum of three authors. For sources with more than three authors, the last name of the first author followed by the phrase “et al”, the year of publication, and the page number or the initials “n.p” should be used. The reference list for this citation style should also appear on a new page. Similar to the other citation styles, the reference list should include entries that exhaust the in-text citation entries. Also, these entries should be double spaced.

Academic writers also use the Chicago citation style. The style entails the use of footnotes and endnotes in referencing quotations or paraphrases from the various sources used. Superscript numbers are used to certain from a source by placing them after a paraphrase or a quote. The citation numbers are expected to appear sequentially with each of these numbers corresponding to a citation, footnote, or endnote. The footnotes used should appear at the bottom of the page in which they are cited while the endnotes should appear in a new page, before the bibliography page, with the page titled “Notes”. Citing a footnote for the first time requires the inclusion of the first and last name of the author or authors, title, publication city, name of the publisher, publication year, and the pages used. Shortening the citation is allowed is it has already been used. The shortened citation should include a shortened name of the author or authors, a shortened title, and the pages used. A writer is allowed to use the phrase “Ibid” together with the pages used in the case where the citation has been used immediately prior.

Citation

Citation is the act of giving credit to other researchers and writers for utilizing their work and ideas in your research paper. Anytime you quote or paraphrase another writer’s idea, then you ought to recognize their contribution by citing their sources. By doing so,  we are able to use other people’s work without plagiarizing. Citation also gives credibility to your work, allowing your readers to distinguish your ideas from those of your sources. It also helps them to locate the materials you used and expand their knowledge regarding the topic.

There are two types of citations: in-text citation and end-of-paper citation. An in-text citation is a brief notation within the text of your work that notifies the reader which source you used at that particular point. End-of-paper citation comprises a list of works cited at the end of the document with all the necessary details regarding the sources used.

Citation Styles

A citation style dictates the rules that should be followed when acknowledging the contribution of another researcher’s thoughts and ideas. There are many different referencing styles, each with unique rules regarding how the information should be presented. The most common types include MLA, APA, Harvard, and Chicago referencing styles. The style used varies with different disciplines. For example, MLA is mostly applied in humanities, APA in social sciences, Harvard is very similar to APA but prevalent in the UK, and lastly, Chicago, which is widely used for history and economics.

MLA (Modern Language Association) Style

As noted earlier, MLA is widely used by humanities students, especially in English and literature. For in-text citations, the MLA style emphasizes the author’s name and the page of the text. The page number will only appear when the information is directly quoted from the original text as follows:

(Wordsworth 263)

At the end of your paper, the list of citations must follow this format. Author’s last name, first name, the title of the book, name of publisher followed by a comma, and lastly, the date of publication. Remember to use a hanging indent for the citation list.

APA (American Psychological Association) style

When making in-text citation in APA referencing, begin with the surname of the author, followed by a comma, then end with the year of publication. When making a direct quote, ensure that you indicate the specific pages.

(Carvone, 2010 pp. 10)

The end-of-page citation list for APA is similar to that of MLA. Start with a hanging indent by skipping three spaces, followed by the author(s) surname, year of publication, the title of the book, and lastly, the name of the publisher.

Harvard Citation style

For in-text citation, begin with the author’s last name, the year of publication, and lastly, the page number if the information is directly quoted from the source. Example:

(Peterson 2008) or Peterson (2008, p. 10) stated that…

The corresponding citation list at the end of paper starts with the author’s last name, initials, year of publication, the title of book, edition, place of publication, and name of the publisher. The title of the source text should be written in italics.

Peterson, C 2010, Title of the book, Open University Press, New York.

Chicago referencing style

For in-text citation, begin with the author’s last name, date of publication followed by a comma, and lastly the page number as seen below.

(Smith 2009, 200-210)

The-end-of the page list of citation format in Chicago style is also similar to MLA and APA. The format must include author’s first name, author’s last name, title, place of publication, publisher’s name, year and referenced pages.

James Smith, The first and last war, (New York, Hamilton, 2003), 2.

In all the four citation styles, the end-of-page reference list should be at the end of the paper on a new page. Also, the list should contain full references for all in-text citations used, and the authors must be organized alphabetically. Lastly, there should be a full blank line separating each line of texts.

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