The various academic disciplines use their own style for citing sources and for listing the works that are cited in a paper. The Bedford Handbook describes three commonly used styles:

Modern Language Association (MLA) in section MLA-4

American Psychological Association (APA) in section APA-4

Chicago Manual of Style in section CMS-4

In researched writing, sources are cited for several reasons. First, it is important to acknowledge the contributions of others. If you fail to credit sources properly, you commit plagiarism, a serious academic offense. Second, choosing appropriate sources will add credibility to your work; in a sense, you are calling on authorities to serve as expert witnesses. The more care you have taken in choosing reliable sources, the stronger your argument will be. Finally—and most importantly—you are engaging in a scholarly conversation and showing readers where they can pursue your topic in greater depth.

All of the academic disciplines cite sources for these same reasons. However, the different styles for citing sources are based on the values and intellectual goals of scholars in different disciplines.

MLA and APA in-text citations

MLA style and APA style both use citations in the text of a paper that refer to a list of works at the end of the paper. The systems work somewhat differently, however, because MLA style was created for scholars in English composition and literature and APA style was created for researchers in the social sciences.

mla in-text citation

Brandon Conran argues that the story is written from “a bifocal point of view” (111).

apa in-text citation

As researchers Yanovski and Yanovski (2002) have explained, obesity was once considered “either a moral failing or evidence of underlying psychopathology” (p. 592).

While MLA and APA styles work in a similar way, some basic disciplinary differences show up in these key elements:

MLA style gives the author’s full name on first mention, emphasizing authorship and interpretation. APA style, which uses last names only, gives a date after the author’s name, reflecting the social scientist’s concern with the currency of study findings. MLA style places the date in the works cited list but omits it in the text. While currency is important, what someone had to say a century ago may be as significant as the latest contribution to the field.

Both styles include page numbers for quotations. MLA style requires page numbers for summaries and paraphrases as well; with a page number, readers can easily find the original passage that has been summarized or paraphrased. While APA does not require page numbers for summaries and paraphrases, it recommends that writers use a page number if doing so would help readers find the passage in a longer work.

Finally, MLA style uses the present tense (such as argues) to introduce cited material (see MLA-3b), whereas APA style uses the past tense or present perfect tense (such as argued or has argued) in signal phrases (see APA-3b). The present tense evokes the timelessness of a literary text; the past tense or present perfect tense emphasizes that research or experimentation occurred in the past.

Chicago-style footnotes or endnotes

Most historians and many scholars in the humanities use the style of footnotes or endnotes recommended by The Chicago Manual of Style. Historians base their work on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, all of which must be cited. The Chicago note system is relatively unobtrusive; even when a paper or an article is thick with citations, readers will not be overwhelmed. In the text of the paper, only a raised number appears. Readers who are interested can consult the accompanying numbered note, which is given either at the foot of the page or at the end of the paper.

text

Historian Albert Castel quotes several eyewitnesses on both the Union and the Confederate sides as saying that Forrest ordered his men to stop firing.7

note

7. Albert Castel, “The Fort Pillow Massacre: A Fresh Examination of the Evidence,” Civil War History 4, no. 1 (1958): 44-45.

The Chicago system gives as much information as the MLA or APA system, but less of that information appears in the text of the paper.