APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Comparing APA and MLA
Capitalizing on consistency: APA and the academic classroom
Conforming to standards: APA and the academic environment

Unlike many of your professors who generally have a choice of documentation styles they teach, you’re frequently required to alternate documentation styles. You may also have the misfortune to use two different styles in two different courses. APA and MLA have enough similarities that they’re easily confused. (See the nearby sidebar for more about MLA.)

APA offers standards for organizing and developing sections of your paper’s beginning, middle, and ending. It recommends procedures for designing the title page, numbering pages, setting margins, and positioning headings and subheadings. APA prioritizes formatting for crediting and citing sources.

Not surprisingly, many professors are possessive of the content they teach, thinking they understand their specialty better than many other experts, sometimes referred to as discipline envy.

Furthermore, a content rivalry exists between APA and MLA. It’s not exactly Buckeyes versus Wolverines or Beatles versus Stones, but it’s strong enough that mixing styles of formatting isn’t healthy for your grade. Table 1-1 looks at the differences between the two most popular documentation styles for students and chapter numbers where you can read more about these topics in this book.

TABLE 1-1 Comparing APA and ML

Additional variations between APA and MLA are as subtle as the ones in Table 1-2:

TABLE 1-2 Subtle Variations between APA and MLA

In my decades of teaching APA, the following patterns of APA errors appeared regularly:

· Neglecting a hanging indentation (first line flush left, all following lines indented five spaces) on the first line of reference items

· Underlining the title on the title page

· Incorrectly positioning the period before sentence-ending parenthesis rather than after parenthesis

· Alphabetizing reference items by criteria other than the author’s last name

· Not coordinating citations and references, which requires all citations to appear in references and all reference items to appear in citations

· Not referencing figures and tables in text

· Neglecting to include date in citation

The inconsistencies of APA and MLA formatting styles are evidenced by the limited consistencies of both. Here are three significant formatting similarities of both styles:

· Prefer 12-point Times New Roman font (see Chapter 14).

· Set one-inch margins of four sides (see Chapter 14).

· Double-space lines of text (see Chapter 14).