What’s the Difference Between an APA and MLA Formatting Style?
In the academic world, citations are a vital part of your research. Whether you’re writing a paper for a class or publishing an article that you hope will make it into peer-reviewed journals, you’re going to have to cite your sources.
It can be confusing at first, but once you get used to the format and style, citations are actually pretty simple. The two most common citation styles are the APA and MLA formats.
In this blog post, we’ll go over the differences between these two styles so you can choose which one is best for your situation!
The American Psychological Association (APA) and Modern Language Association (MLA) are two of the most common styles of academic writing. Both have their own rules for how to format your paper, but there are also some differences between them.
The APA style is meant to make sure that readers can easily find information in your paper, and it requires that you use a specific format for things like quotations, references, and tables. It also has special rules about how to cite sources in-text (i.e., when you’re actually writing) rather than just listing them in a bibliography at the end of your paper.
The MLA style is similar in that it focuses on making sure that readers can access information quickly and easily—but it differs from the APA style in a few key ways. Most notably: the MLA style uses quotation marks instead of italics (although both styles allow you to choose). And while MLA formatting can be used for any kind of academic writing, the APA style is used specifically for social science research and theory articles—and not much else!
Takeaway
So, now that you know the difference between APA and MLA style, it’s time to put what you’ve learned into practice. The key is to remember that the goal of any writing format is to make your writing easy to read and understand.
As long as you’re following the guidelines for your specific style, you’ll be able to craft a document that will help your readers understand your message.
If you want to learn more about the APA format, check out our blog “No More APA Citation Stress: Here’s Your One-Minute Cheat Sheet”.
