APA

American Psychological Association (APA) style is commonly used in the social sciences.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) offers a useful and comprehensive guide to citing different types of sources in APA format. Some useful pages include:

• APA Sample Paper
• APA In-Text Citations: The Basics
• Reference List: Basic Rules
• Reference List: Electronic Sources

You can also manually set your default document layout to APA style using Microsoft Word. For help with default settings and information on formatting, this video on YouTube can be helpful.

MLA

Modern Language Association (MLA) style is commonly used in the humanities.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) offers a useful and comprehensive guide to citing different types of sources in MLA format. Some useful pages include:

• MLA Sample Paper
• MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics
• MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format
• MLA Works Cited: Electronic Sources

You can manually set your default document layout to MLA style using Microsoft Word. For help with default settings and information on formatting, another video on YouTube can be helpful.

Chicago

The Chicago Manual of Style is commonly used in history and other humanities disciplines.

There are two types of Chicago format:

• The author-date style uses parenthetical citations, which means that the citation information is within parentheses beside the quoted or paraphrased information.
• The note-bibliography style requires the use of footnotes or endnotes, which means that the citation information is either at the foot of the page or at the end of the article, and is noted at the end of the quoted or paraphrased text with a number in superscript.

Both styles are explained in detail in the Chicago Manual of Style Online.

For help with default settings and information on formatting your paper in Microsoft Word, this video on YouTube may be helpful.

More help

See our guide to Citing and Citation Styles.