There are different styles which format the information differently. In each tab, you will find descriptions of each citation style featured in this guide along with links to online resources for citing and a few examples.
What is a citation and citation style?
A citation is a way of giving credit to individuals for their creative and intellectual works that you utilized to support your research. It can also be used to locate particular sources and combat plagiarism. Typically, a citation can include the author's name, date, location of the publishing company, journal title, or DOI (Digital Object Identifier).
A citation style dictates the information necessary for a citation and how the information is ordered, as well as punctuation and other formatting.
How to do I choose a citation style?
There are many different ways of citing resources from your research. The citation style sometimes depends on the academic discipline involved. For example:
*You will need to consult with your Supervisor to determine what is required in your specific course.
APA (American Psychological Association) Style originated in 1929, when a group of psychologists, anthropologists, and business managers convened and sought to establish a simple set of procedures, or style rules, that would codify the many components of scientific writing to increase the ease of reading comprehension.
As with other editorial styles, APA Style consists of rules or guidelines that a publisher observes to ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material. It concerns uniform use of such elements as selection of headings, tone, and length, punctuation and abbreviations, presentation of numbers and statistics, construction of tables and figures, citation of references, and many other elements that are a part of a manuscript. (Source: Official APA website)
Go to our guide about APA style for further details:
MLA (Modern Language Association) style for documentation is widely used in the humanities, especially in writing on language and literature. MLA style features brief parenthetical citations in the text keyed to an alphabetical list of works cited that appears at the end of the work. (Source: Official MLA website)
Core Elements
Each entry in the list of works cited is composed of facts common to most works—the MLA core elements. They are assembled in a specific order.
Containers
The concept of containers is crucial to MLA style. When the source being documented forms part of a larger whole, the larger whole can be thought of as a container that holds the source. For example, a short story may be contained in an anthology. The short story is the source, and the anthology is the container.
Rationale
The Modern Language Association, the authority on research and writing, takes a fresh look at documenting sources in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook. Works are published today in a dizzying range of formats. A book, for example, may be read in print, online, or as an e-book--or perhaps listened to in an audio version. On the Web, modes of publication are regularly invented, combined, and modified. Previous editions of the MLA Handbook provided separate instructions for each format, and additional instructions were required for new formats. In this groundbreaking new edition of its best-selling handbook, the MLA recommends instead one universal set of guidelines, which writers can apply to any type of source. Shorter and redesigned for easy use, the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook guides writers through the principles behind evaluating sources for their research. It then shows them how to cite sources in their writing and create useful entries for the works-cited list. More than just a new edition, this is a new MLA style. (Source: MLA)
Go to our guide about MLA 8 for further details:
Online MLA citation resources
Chicago is a documentation sytle that has been published by the Chicago University Press since 1906. This citation style incorporates rules of grammar and punctuation common in American English. Typically, Chicago style presents two basic documentation systems: (1) notes and bibliography and (2) author-date. Choosing between the two often depends on subject matter and the nature of sources cited, as each system is favored by different groups of scholars.
The notes and bibliography style is preferred by many in the humanities, including those in literature, history, and the arts. This style presents bibliographic information in notes and, often, a bibliography.
|
Material Type |
Notes/Bibliography Style |
|
A book in print |
Note Style: 1. Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (New York: Penguin, 2006), 99–100. Duplicate Note: 2. Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, 3. Bibliography: Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006. |
|
An article in a print journal |
Note Style: 1. Joshua I. Weinstein, "The Market in Plato’s Republic," Classical Philology 104 (2009): 440. Duplicate Note: 2. Weinstein, "Plato’s Republic," 452–53. Bibliography: Weinstein, Joshua I. "The Market in Plato’s Republic." Classical Philology 104 (2009): 439–58. |
|
An article in an electronic journal |
Note Style: 1. Gueorgi Kossinets and Duncan J. Watts, “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving Social Network,” American Journal of Sociology 115 (2009): 411, accessed February 28, 2010, doi:10.1086/599247. Duplicate Note: Kossinets and Watts, “Origins of Homophily,” 439. Bibliography: Kossinets, Gueorgi, and Duncan J. Watts. “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving Social Network.” American Journal of Sociology 115 (2009): 405–50. Accessed February 28, 2010. doi:10.1086/599247. |
|
A website |
Note Style: 1.“Google Privacy Policy,” last modified March 11, 2009, http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html. Duplicate Note: “Google Privacy Policy.” Bibliography: Google. “Google Privacy Policy.” Last modified March 11, 2009. http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html. |
The author-date style has long been used by those in the physical, natural, and social sciences. In this system, sources are briefly cited in the text, usually in parentheses, by author’s last name and date of publication. The short citations are amplified in a list of references, where full bibliographic information is provided.
|
Author/Date Style |
In-text Citation |
Bibliography |
|
A book |
(Pollan 2006, 99–100) |
Pollan, Michael. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin. |
|
An article in a print journal |
(Weinstein 2009, 440) |
Weinstein, Joshua I. 2009. “The Market in Plato’s Republic.” Classical Philology 104:439–58. |
|
An article in an electronic journal |
(Kossinets and Watts 2009, 411) |
Kossinets, Gueorgi, and Duncan J. Watts. 2009. “Origins of Homophily in an Evolving Social Network.” American Journal of Sociology115:405–50. Accessed February 28, 2010. doi:10.1086/599247. |
|
A website |
(Google 2009) |
Google. 2009. “Google Privacy Policy.” Last modified March 11. http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacypolicy.html. |
(Source: Official Chicago Manual website)
Go to our guide about Chicago style for further details:
Online citation managers are an easy way to go to keep track of all of your references. Listed below are a few online citation management tools.
MLA Handbook by This guide is based on the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style Online. Go to the link for further details: