MLA or APA?

There are two main citation formats that the college uses: Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA). How do you know which citation style to use? Check your course handbook. Many course handbooks will specify either MLA or APA, but some will say that you can use either one. If the handbook or your professor says that you are allowed to use MLA or APA, then it’s up to you to choose, but you have to pick one and stick to it. It is not permitted to mix different citation styles in a single essay.

Comparison of MLA and APA

Notice some of the things that MLA and APA have in common:

• Citations have hanging indentation
• Citations are double spaced
• Citations are in alphabetical order by the first word of the citation

Here is a paraphrased summary of two of the differences between MLA and APA that have been analyzed by Richard Hannon, Jr., a professor of English and a librarian:

Authors’ Names

APA does not include authors’ first names, only initials. This aligns with beliefs in psychology that the research method is more important than the individual researchers. In MLA, we can see the value placed on the individual researcher’s individuality because their full name is included in the citation. That also means that MLA citation rules are designed on the assumption that most articles and books will only have one author, since most work in the humanities is based on a single researcher’s perspective. So MLA cuts off the number of authors it includes in citations, while APA allows a long list of authors to be included (Hannon).

Publication Dates

APA puts the publication date near the front of the citation and also includes it in the in-text citation. This aligns with beliefs in psychology that knowledge grows and improves over time, so knowing how recent a publication is will be very important for readers who are evaluating psychology research. In MLA, we can see that the publication date is less important and appears near the end of the citation, since in the humanities an ancient text can be considered as relevant and worthy of study as a contemporary text (Hannon).

Other differences between MLA and APA are not evidence of differences between the two communities, but only differences in what is considered to increase clarity and readability in citations. For example, article, book, and book chapter titles are not capitalized in APA because the people who created that citation style think that it helps readers to be able to quickly see the difference between those titles and journal titles, which are capitalized as well as italicized (McAdoo).

Note that MLA and APA rules also change over time as new editions of the rules are released. The number shows which version of the rules is being used and it’s almost always best to use the most current version of the rules because they replace the older version. Your professor might say they want you to use MLA9, for example, and that means they want you to use the 9th edition. Or your professor may just say to use MLA and assume that you will know to use the most recent edition.

Here are three different sources cited in MLA9 and APA7 styles so you can notice the differences between these two styles of citations.