Referencing styles!

Hi ya!

As part of e-tivity 6, we were asked to go on the Internet and read about two different referencing styles: APA (American Psychological Association), and MLA (Modern Language Association). I spent some time exploring the two websites, trying to find similarities and differences between them. One basic difference that immediately got my attention was the format used to write the title of books or other written sources, such as journals or magazines. On the one hand, APA wants the title to be written in italics, without double quotation marks; on the other hand, MLA style recommends avoiding italics and underlining the title instead. Another important difference concerns the way to cite one or more authors on the reference list. According to APA, one should write the author's surname first, followed by their name's initials. In case there are two or more authors, their names have to be separated by a comma, and the last item preceded by ampersand. MLA, on the contrary, says not to abbreviate the names of authors, and to list them starting with their first name, except for the first author. What's more, there should be 'and' and not ampersand before the last author's name. The year of publication comes immediately after the author's name in the APA style, whereas in the MLA format, it's written at the end, after the publisher's name.

Thinking about the reference style I used when writing my BA thesis, I can say it was a sort of mix between the two formats. I actually followed my supervisor's instructions, without applying the rules of international formats like APA or MLA. So, on the reference list the names of the authors had to be written in full, starting with their last names. After that came the year of publication and the title of the source in Italics. Finally, place of publication and publisher's name. Everytime I quoted a new source I needed to write all the details not only on the reference list, but also in a footnote. Then, for further references to the same source an in-text citation was enough. Unlike APA and MLA formats, for in-text references I was asked to write the title of the source, followed by the year of publication and the relevant page number(s). Finally, as for web sources, I didn't need to write the date of publication or last update, but only the date of my latest access to the source itself.

I personally prefer the APA style because it's more coherent to what I've learned so far in terms of how to write references. I reckon that, unlike MLA guidelines, the APA Formatting and Style Guide is easier to learn and put into practice.

Serena