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Lecturer by Dr. Rafia’ah Nur., M.Hum

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MLA AND APA

RIDWAN

( 217300035 )

GRADUATED PROGRAM
MUHAMMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF PAREPARE
2018
 INTRODUCTION

MLA (The Modern Language Association)

MLA style is most commonly used to cite sources within the language arts, cultural

studies, and other humanities. This resource, revised according to the 8th edition of the

MLA manual, offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text

citations, and the Works Cited page. For more information, please consult the official MLA

Handbook

APA (American Psychological Association)

APA Style is a writing style and format for academic documents such as

scholarly journal articles and books. It is commonly used for citing sources within the field of

behavioral and social sciences. It is described in the style guide of the American

Psychological Association (APA), which is titled the Publication Manual of the American

Psychological Association. The guidelines were developed to aid reading comprehension in

the social and behavioral sciences, for clarity of communication, and for "word choice that

best reduces bias in language"

MLA and APA provide a set system of precise formatting rules to apply when

referencing sources in a paper or essay writing. *Some professors may actually require APA

and MLAwriting styles for the sole purpose of providing them with a comprehensive and

clear method of checking student sources and references.

 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MLA AND APA FORMAT

The main differences between these popular citation formats include in-text

citations are:

Type MLA APA

Author’s MLA requires the author’s last APA requires the author’s last

Name: name and the page number name and year separated by a

The author’s full name (first comma

and last) is spelled out.( How The author’s last name is

authors’ names are expressed, spelled out and the first name is

MLA uses entire names) reduced to initials. ( APA uses

last name and initials)

the title for the source page MLA the title for the source page APA

Tittle/ source calls it calls it “References”

page “Works Cited”

Capitalization All major words in the title are Only the first word of the title,

capitalized and the title is the first word of a subtitle, and

underlined. any proper nouns (like names)

are capitalized. Everything else

is lowercase. Also, the title is

written in italics.

MLA places the date after the APA places it immediately after

Date publisher’s the author’s name and is placed in

name parentheses
 MLA does not uses commas to APA does use commas and, if a

In-Text separate the material, or p. page is mentioned, uses p. and

Citations: pp. before the page numbers. pp.

According to Differences Between APA and MLA Writing Styles:

1. An APA-formatted paper consists of four parts: title page, abstract, main body

and references. The abstract is a single, double-spaced paragraph. The MLA-

formatted paper does not have a separate title page or an abstract and has two

major parts: the body of the paper and a works cited page.

2. MLA and APA papers have slightly different methods for in-text citations

as MLA follows the author-page format and APA follows the author-date

format. An APA-formatted paper includes the author's last name and year of

publication in parenthesis after the cited text. An MLA-formatted paper

includes the author's last name and page number in parenthesis after the text.

3. APA-formatted papers use page headers at the top of every page, including the

title page. Page numbers are flush right and the title of the paper is flush left.

The title page includes the title, author's name, and institutional affiliation. An

MLA formatted paper includes the title on the first page, separating the title

from the essay only by a double space. MLA uses a header on the left side of the

first page that includes author name, instructor name, course and date.
Example 1 : MLA
Our name

The professor's name

The Course number

And the date of

the paper are
doublespaced
in 12- point, Times
New Roman font. Dates in
MLA are
written in this order: day,
Example 2 month, and year.
MLA: (Burns 101)
APA: (Burns, 1999, p. 4)

Here are two comparison examples:

MLA:
Klaphake, Elizabeth. My Life as an English Professor. Bellevue,
Nebraska: Bellevue University Press. 1999.
APA:
Klaphake, E. (1999). My life as an English professor. Bellevue,
Nebraska: Bellevue University Press.
 Reference

https://www.quora.com/

https://academictips.org/mla-format/general-differences-between-mla-and-apa/

https://www.softchalk.com/lessonchallenge10/lesson/he%20final/MLA/MLA_print.html

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_style_introduction.html