Learn different referencing styles: a beginner's guide

 

 

Kahn is a South African and has come to the UK to study. He was at the end of his first semester and was very enthusiastic about the final assignment of the semester. The assignment was worth 50 % of his coursework. He was shocked to see that the instructor had given him an F grade in the course and specifically in the final assignment. On probing further, he read the teachers’ comments that the formatting and citations in the assignment were all wrong. You can also take help from an essay writer

In this article, we will discuss the important aspects of the three or four most commonly used citation styles.

 

American Psychological Association (APA)

It is one of the most common styles of writings and it can be used for different forms of assignments. An APA style paper mainly has the following sections:

  • Title page
  • Abstract showing a summary of the work
  • Introduction to the paper
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • References

 

There are some specific details associated with the APA style formatting. A professional essay writer can help you in formatting the assignment appropriately. However, the following are the major requirements for the APA format.

  •         Running head with the shortened title
  •         Page numbers start from the title page
  •         Times New Roman 12 size font
  •         Double Spaced
  •         Indented Paragraphs

 

The APA-style paper or assignment should not have any biased words in the text. Since the style is followed by the academic and research institutions, the assignment should be written in a very neutral language.

 

References are used both in-text and at the end of the document. The in-text citation will include the last name of the author, year, and page number. When there are three or more authors in this style, the citation includes the last name of the first author followed by et., al.

 

Examples: Training programs have been developed by many researchers aimed at improving the ability of the locals to understand others’ accents (Drawing et al., 2002)

Drawing, T. M., Rossiter, M. J., & Munro, M. J. (2002). Teaching native speakers to listen to foreign-accented speech. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 23(4), 245-259.

Some of the material will be sourced through web pages and they are cited by using the author and date if it is known. If there is no author available, the title of the webpage will be used in the citation. If there is no date mentioned in the document, (n.d.) is used after the last name of the author.

 

Examples: Teens can face depression and other mental disorders as a result of excessive use of social media (Asmelash, 2019)

Asmelash, L. (2019, August 14). Social media use may harm teens' mental health by disrupting positive activities, a study says. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/13/health/social-media-mental-health-trnd/index.html

There is a little difference in the in-text citations at the end of the sentence and the beginning of a sentence as shown below:

A study found that the speaker should be familiar with the topic if a good non-native speech is to be delivered (Gass & Varonis, 1984). This is called a parenthetical citation.

Gass & Varonis (1984) found that the most important aspect while making a non-native speech is to comprehend the topic properly. This is called a narrative citation.

 

 

Modern Language Association (MLA)

The Modern Language Association developed this format and citation style. When I opt to write my essay, I prefer this style because of its simplicity. The following guidelines will help in understanding this formatting style in a better way.

  • The writing should start one inch below the top of the first page and just next to the left margin.
  • The header includes the last name of the author just next to the page number
  • Your name, instructor’s name, course name and number, and date are written at the start in separate lines and with double space between them.
  • There will be double space between the heading and first line of the text
  • One-inch margins are used around the whole page in this format
  • The first word of each paragraph will be indented and the sentences should begin 1.5 inches from the left margin
  • The whole content will be double spaced in this format. This characteristic should be found between the written body of the content, between the headings and text, and on the references page.

 

The references used in MLA are parenthetical which involves providing the source information in parenthesis. The author-page style includes the last name of the author at the start of the sentence and the page number is shown in the parenthesis at the end of the sentence.

 

Examples: Romantic poetry includes the “immediate overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth 263)

Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was characterized by an immediate flow of powerful feelings (263).

For print sources like books, magazines, and journal articles are cited by using the last name of the author in the parenthesis.

 

 

Example: Human beings are described as animals who use Symbols (Burke 3)

The above content and examples show the difference between APA and MLA formats and referencing styles. An essay writing service can also be hired if there is still some confusion regarding these two styles. Such services can be the last resort for many students like Kahn. It is important to learn the formatting and referencing styles even before starting the assignment. Another option is to use the online resources to generate the citations under different styles. These resources are especially useful when there is an unusual source at hand or the writer does not have enough time to learn the styles. 




 

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