Differences between APA vs MLA: What Format to Use?

Scholastic achievements are built on stringent rules and regulations when it comes to writing, from a simple college essay and up to complex and investigative science publications. In general, there are three main citation styles in academic writing: APA, MLA, and Chicago. Their main goal is to provide correct citations, evade plagiarism, and build integrated paper structure.

Guidelines of APA:

This style originates in guidelines of the American Psychology Association (APA) that created rules for journal articles publications and books. It was first recognized in 1929 to aid authors to construct their works andcraft a distinctive style of references and citations. It is vital not to confuse a reader, but to give the most complete text with appropriate headlines, works cited list, and evadepiracy. APA is usually used for scientific papers, documents, lab reports. APA format is about date and creator’s name. Also, this style requires using in text citations and repeating these citations and their sources in the special list in the end. It also commands language use criteria when it comes to educational workings. Its rules are being continuously modernized to remove chauvinist, discriminatory or opinionated language. These points are the leading ones challenging this style in general.A number of publication manuals are very useful.APA is the official publication style and an understanding in document formatting is a must.APA format is very widespread, especially for several college papers in Psychology, Education, and other Social Sciences. This style dictates every presentation component of your paper. Spacing, margins and the content arrangement should be prepared in this particular format.

APA style uses five chief segments:

·     Title Page

·     Abstract

·     Main Body

·     References

·     Title Page

Tips about your papers title in this format:

·     There should not be any abbreviations or words without any purpose. Just give the essential hint of your paper.

·     Use 12 size Times New Roman font and center the main title. You should not try to draw attention by accentuating, underlining, and italicizing the main header.

·     The main title should get up to two lines and contain only 12 - 14 words maximum.

·     Text on the title page should always be double-spaced. It should be done in the same way as the remaining parts of your paper.

·     Do not use Dr. or Ms. titles before the author’s name.

Standard Guidelines of MLA:

Modern Language Association (MLA) style type is used in dealing with humanities, language, and literature. Being quite simple, it still has some tricky issues for new users. Undeniably, MLAis easier than other styles like APA, Chicago, and Oxford, but not simple enough to deal with without any prior homework, planning, and proper research. Therefore, you should carefully follow few MLA format rules to get a flawless paper.

MLA style influences formatting of such things as:

·     Manuscript elements;

·     Table presentation;

·     Referencing;

·     Punctuation;

·     Statistics;

·     Headings;

·     Abbreviations;

Your paper will always be protected from plagiarism if MLA format is used. For that reason, you should have impeccable citations in your paper. MLA format is very supportive when you want to take in other people’s views in your academic writing.

MLA standards include:

·     Double-spaced lines;

·     Set Times New Roman 12pt font size, one-inch for all margins;

·     Bibliographical list of works cited;

·     If there is more than one of one scientist, alphabetical order for authors and also alphabetical order for works;

·     Direct in-text citations have only name and page, without a comma; indirect citations have only page;

·     No extra line-break between citations;

·     Page number along with author’s full name on the upper right part

·     Articles’ title should be in quotation marks and every word should be capitalized.

Difference between APA vs MLA:

Before you choose when to use MLA or APA you must check the assignment –if your teacher has shown citation format already. If not, you can select one on your own. Usually, they vary in subjects they are used to. So whether you need to prefer APA or MLA is cleared by the field of science you are leading the research at.

·     APA is used for social sciences, such as: Psychology, Sociology, Nursing, Criminology, Social Work, Business, and Education.

·     MLA is used for humanities, such as: History, Literature, Language, Philosophy, Arts, Theatre, Religion, Anthropology, Law and Politics.

·     Key difference between MLA and APA begins with history of these styles, which is provided by the Modern Language Association for literary and scientific research in the area of humanities. MLA is more in depth when it concerns references and citations. It is also universallyapplied in present tense of verbs. MLA vs APA have one more major difference: MLA is concentrated on names of authors and treats old sources as well as the new studies.Whereas APA, on the contrary, is fixated on year of referenced book or publications, most ideally the latest and applicable ones.

What format to use?

Humanities courses students are usually requested to style their works according to MLA guidelines. However, students in science and research fields are generally incited to follow the APA guidelines. In college, the main reason for using the MLA or APA is so that professionals, researchers, professors, and other academician can effortlessly comprehend the syntax and easily examine the citations. In terms of numbers, majority of middle and high school students are taught MLA style, whereas in college, there is a mix, depending on the research field of the student.

In college, the main reason for using a standardized reference format like MLA or APA is so that a professional can comprehend the syntax and rearrange the writer's sources. However, in high school, unless the bibliography is created for a larger audience, often the only readers of that particular work may be the local teacher or the librarian. Teachers of K-12 students normally select the MLA format because the MLA Handbook gives substantial details about citing books, anthologies, audio-visual material, and other sources like interviews, advertisements, and cartoons. In contrast, the emphasis in the APA Publication Manual is on sources that students would typically only encounter in advanced research, such as technical reports, proceedings of meetings, and dissertations.

Since teaching any style at the high school level will prepare students for college documentation, the emphasis should be on why it is important to cite sources. The process of citing is similar whatever format you use - you compile a bibliography, you refer to entries in the bibliography using parenthetical references, and so forth. The basic concepts are the same;it is just the syntax and order that changes.