Using and Citing Sources: Get Stronger

MLA and APA Documentation

MLA Format

You’ve learned about many of the best practices for citing sources in MLA. Remember, the idea is that you want to leave a trail for others to easily find your work. MLA citations generally follow this basic anatomy:

  • Author Last Name, First Name. “Article Title.” Name of Journal, vol. #, no. #issue, year, pp. page range. Database name, URL/DOI.
For example:

Scarantino, Andrea, and Michael Nielsen. “Voodoo Dolls And Angry Lions: How Emotions Explain Arational Actions.” Philosophical Studies, vol. 172, no. 11, 2015, pp. 2975-2998. Academic Search Complete.

Sarnoff, Nancy. “Web’s Role in House Hunt Grows.” Chron.com, Houston Chronicle, 1 Dec. 2007, www.chron.com/business/sarnoff/article/Web-s-role-in-house-hunt-grows-1793822.php.

Online articles typically follow this format:

  • Author. “Article Title.” Website Name, Site Publisher, date published, URL optional. Access date optional.

Avirgan, Jody. “Not All Privacy Policies Are Created Equal.” FiveThirtyEight, 12 Feb. 2016, fivethirtyeight.com/features/not-all-privacy-policies-are-created-equal.

“Good vs Bad Cholesterol.”  American Heart Association, 12 Jan. 2015, www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/Cholesterol/AboutCholesterol/Good-vs-Bad-Cholesterol_UCM_305561_Article.jsp.

MLA Checklist

If you’d like to see even more examples or review what was presented above, click through the following slides. You can also download the presentation here.

Now that you’ve learned the basic formatting guidelines and techniques for citing sources using MLA style, let’s review APA formatting.

APA Format

APA citations differ slightly from MLA expectations. For in-text citations, APA asks for the year and page number, when applicable:

  • (Author Last Name(s), Year, p. #)
  • (Smith, 2013, p. 43)

The reference page citations follow this basic format:

  • Author Last Name, First Initial. Year Published. Article titled capitalized like a sentence. Name of Journal, volume(issue), page range. DOI number/URL
For example, a journal from a print database is formatted this way (if it were from an online database, you would include the DOI or URL at the end):

Author’s Last name, Author’s First and Middle initials, & Last names and initials of other authors, if any. (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal italicized, Volume number italicized(Issue number), Page numbers. DOI

Light, M. A. & Light, I. H. (2008). The geographic expansion of Mexican immigration in the United States and its implications for local law enforcement. Law Enforcement Executive Forum Journal, 8(1), 73-82.

An online article is formatted this way:

Author’s Last name, Author’s First and Middle initials, & Last names and initials of other authors, if any. (Year, Month and Day of publication, if available). Title of article. Title of Magazine italicized, Volume number italicized(Issue number, if available). URL or DOI link

Farelly, E. (2008, March/April). Fear of not having had. Orion. https://orionmagazine.org/article/fear-of-not-having-had/

APA Formatting Checklist

Step through this presentation to review the critical components of authoring a paper in APA style.

Academic Honesty

Review various forms of academic dishonesty in the interactive below.