Citation Styles: APA, MLA: Getting Started

• Citations give credit to authors or creators for their intellectual works you use to support your ideas in academic papers. Usually, a citation includes some form of the author's name, the date, an article title, a journal title, and a DOI (Digital Object Identifier).
• Citation styles tell which information is necessary for a citation, how the information is ordered within the citation, and punctuation and other formatting.

There are multiple ways to cite resources from your research. Usually your professor will tell you which citation style to use. In general, the citation style depends on the academic discipline that you are in. For example:

• APA (American Psychological Association) is used for Education, Psychology, and the Sciences.
• MLA (Modern Language Association) is used for the Humanities which include English.
• CSE (Council of Science Editors) is used exclusively for Natural and Physical Sciences.

Go to the Madonna University Writing Center's Online Writing Lab (OWL) and click on the Formatting and Citation Guides to learn more about each type of citation style. You can also make an appointment with the Writing Center to have them look at your paper and your citations!