It comes as no surprise that the most predominant assignment students get is essay writing. It is a universal task that aims to develop students’ critical thinking, decision making, writing, and analytical abilities. Regardless of the major, you will have to generate the bulk of papers during your academic path. And although you might be heavily into the subject, it doesn’t mean you will get an A+.

Essay writing can be challenging in different ways. Yet, students find formatting styles and differences between them the trickiest caveat. If you don’t want to fall into the same trap, read this guide. It discusses the peculiarities of two main styles, such as APA and MLA, and emphasizes their differences.

What Is A Formatting Style

Every academic paper has to follow a specific formatting style. It is done to preserve the rules and make sure the work is credible and relied on authoritative materials. A formatting style is a standardized approach to creating a scholarly piece. It gives the work the right appearance. Every formatting style is recognizable in various terms. The most distinct components are the title and the author’s name, the spacing between the lines, and how sources are included in the work.

Numerous formatting styles exist these days. Depending on the discipline, people stick to various styles. Yet, according to a cheap essays writing service, the most prevalent styles are APA and MLA. Let’s take a closer look at both of them.

What Is APA

American Psychological Association (APA for short) is a writing style. It is usually used when writing research papers and other analyses. APA is always used by majors, such as Social Sciences, including but not limited to Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, and other fields like Education, Business, and Nursing.

What is MLA

MLA, also known as the Modern Language Association, is an organization that works with language and literature. Typically, people involved in fields like English Studies, Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, Foreign Languages and Literatures, Comparative Literature, and other Humanities (Art, Music, Religion, Philosophy, Film) use MLA.

APA Elements and Features

Like any other formatting style, APA has cross-referencing, manuscript guidelines, in-text citations, and references. It also consists of supporting documents. However, they are only necessary in case the instructor requires adding them to work. Usually, they are prevalent in extensive papers (theses, dissertations). Nonetheless, such attributes are author note, abstract, footnotes, and appendix (brief details).

APA has several unique features that are worthy of consideration. They are as follows:

• Title page (with running head)
• Abstract
• Headings
• Page number for direct quotations
• Short quotations are fewer than 40 words
• Long quotations are 40 words or more
• The thesis statement answers a research question or hypothesis
• Necessary data: empirical studies, reviews, case studies, analyses, etc.

MLA Elements and Features

Likewise, Modern Language Association has cross-referencing, manuscript guidelines, in-text citations, and Works Cited. When it comes to additional elements, they are annotated bibliography and footnotes and/or endnotes. The latter components are widely used when working on substantial works.

Overall, the features of MLA are:

• Title page not required
• Every in-text citation must comprise of the scholar’s name, year, and page
• Short quotations are four lines or less
• Long quotation are over four lines
• Thesis statement declares what the author must do (explain, compare, trace, etc.)
• Evidence are examples, facts, statistics, opinions, charts, graphs, maps, historical proof, etc.

Purpose

Since these two styles are different and used within different fields, they have exclusive purposes. That is, American Psychological Association reports original research and reviews literature previously written about a research subject. Whereas Modern Language Association analyzes, argues, compares, contrasts, defines, describes, discusses, evaluates, explains, illustrates, informs, interprets, narrates, reports, shows, summarizes, traces the given question.

Differences

Not only do these two formatting styles differ based on the disciplines they are used in, but they are also different in many other terms. For instance, the Modern Language Association relies on an author-page method of citation. In contrast, the American Psychological Association relies on an author-date citation method (provided that the citation is not direct). Let’s look in a broader scope at differences.

APA

• Constructed for scholars and researchers in the Social Sciences, Business, Education
• It requires using authors’ name only
• The style is characterized by an objective tone and formal, academic writing
• It is usually neutral and doesn’t contain expressions.
• It requires using past or present perfect tense verb in a signal phrase
• It requires attaching DOI (digital object identifier) or document number

MLA

• Created for those who study languages, cultures, and Humanities
• It requires using the authors’ full name
• The tone is flexible and always depends on the audience
• It requires using present tense verb in signal phrase
• It doesn’t require attaching DOI
• Academic works retrieved from trusted sources (databases, journals, etc.) are accepted

Finding A Format In Google Docs

Google Docs is a great word processor. It is simple and straightforward. Plus, it has a variety of templates to use. If you know your writing style, you don’t have to create the format manually. All you need to do is go to the Files section, choose New, and click on Find template. When you click, Google Docs will open a new tab with an exhaustive list of templates.

Once you are on the page, scroll a bit down till you find the Education section. There you will find an APA as well as an MLA document. Select any you need, and you will see a sample text showing what your paper will look like in the long run.

Concluding

Writing an essay comprises various stages. And one of them is formatting. Students may get confused about what style to use. Hardly can they spot differences between APA and MLA. They use them interchangeably and get unsatisfactory grades after such actions. Under no circumstances should you follow the same path.

This guide unveils the most prominent differences between these two styles. It highlights quirks, such as in-text citation, tone, and the last page’s name. Most importantly, it demonstrates disciplines that use a particular style. If you belong to any of them, this article will help you get a clear picture of the format you should employ.

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