Style Guides
There exist several style guides that prescribe the format of written work for professionals and students. The ability to follow these guides is one of the signs of professional quality work, and professors often assign significant grade value to correct formatting, including citations and references.
Citations are the labels, either in the text or in footnotes, that mark a piece of information as coming from somewhere other than the writer's own experience and creativity. These labels give readers just enough information to locate the source in a reference list, where they can see all of the information needed to find the source for themselves. Both the citations and the references have prescribed formats, and a good writer must follow them exactly.
The four detailed guides that follow represent the three major styles currently in use. Rarely will you need others.
APA
The American Psychological Association style is commonly used in the sciences and social sciences. It allows readers to quickly identify the source of a piece of information without looking away from the text, at the cost of some flexibility in citation and referencing. The APA released the 7th edition of their manual in late 2019; all of the guides below follow the 7th edition.
Guide and Template for term papers and assignments:
APA Citation & Reference Guide:
Guide and Template for major projects (theses, dissertaions, & publications):
The APA Site:
What's new in the 7th edition?
The 7th Edition of the APA Style Guide includes some notable improvements.
The Running Head
It is no longer necessary for student papers to have a running head (only page numbers).
It is also no longer necessary to have “Running head:” prior to the shortened version of the title on the title page of a professional paper.
The Heading Styles
The APA 7th Edition heading styles are simpler.
The In-Text Citations
The most significant change to the in-text citation style is the use of “et al.” for the first as well as subsequent citations for sources with three or more authors.
The References
There have been a few changes to how online sources are referenced:
- It is no longer necessary to include the words “Retrieved from” prior to a URL.
- The URL is hyperlinked and there is no period following a URL
- DOI numbers should be included in their URL form (e.g., http://doi.org/ …)
Chicago author-date
The Chicago Manual of Style offers the most detailed prescriptions for formatting and referencing. Its Author-Date version uses in-text citations to achieve the immediate accessibility of APA and ASA citations, while maintaining the Chicago style format.
Guide and Template for term papers and assignments:
Chicago Style (Author-Date) Citation & Reference Guide:
Guide and Template for major projects (theses, dissertations, & publications):
The CMOS site:
Chicago footnotes
The Chicago Manual of Style offers the most detailed prescriptions for formatting and referencing. Its Notes & Bibliography version uses footnotes or endnotes to provide more detail in citations than any other style, with a cleaner and more readable text. Historians in particular favour this style for its ease of use with unpublished primary sources.
Guide and Template for term papers and assignments:
Chicago Style (Notes & Bibliography) Citation & Reference Guide:
Guide and Template for major projects (theses, dissertations, & publications):
The CMOS site:
MLA
The Modern Language Association style is favoured by those who work in literature and related fields. A simple style that sometimes requires the writer to use their own judgement in formatting, the MLA style can struggle with obscure or complex references. The MLA released their 9th edition manual in late 2021; all of the guides below follow the 9th edition.
Guide and Template for term papers and assignments:
MLA Citation & Reference Guide:
Guide and Template for major projects (theses, dissertations, & publications):
The MLA site:
What's new in the 9th edition?
Very little. Of note, reference list entries including containers (e.g.: journals)
within other containers (e.g.: databases) should list both. In the example below, both the
container named "The Kenyon Review" and the larger container named "JSTOR"
are formatted in italics, as containers must be.
Katzen, Hayley. “Cut Down to Size.” The Kenyon Review, vol. 38, no. 6,
Kenyon College, 2016, pp. 102–13. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26451147.
Special Cases:
Citing Generative AI
Harvard Style
IEEE Style
ASA Style
Still have questions?
There are many other styles and variations upon styles that you may be asked to use, to the level of a particular publication's unique or "house" style. For clarification or help with unusual requirements, you can ask your professors or an Academic Success Centre instructor.
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