Citations give credit to your sources and let readers find them. Most high school and college classes use either MLA (Modern Language Association) or APA (American Psychological Association) style. The two share the same purpose but format details differently. This guide follows the current editions, MLA 9 and APA 7, and shows them side by side.
Which one should you use?
- MLA: English, literature, languages and the humanities. It emphasizes the author and page number, since humanities writing often quotes specific passages.
- APA: psychology, education, nursing and the social sciences. It emphasizes the year, because how recent the research is matters in those fields.
When in doubt, follow your teacher's instructions; they override any general rule.
In-text citations
MLA uses the author's last name and page number, with no comma: (Smith 42). If you name the author in your sentence, just give the page: Smith argues that sleep shapes memory (42).
APA uses the author's last name and year, with a comma: (Smith, 2021). Add a page number for direct quotations: (Smith, 2021, p. 42). In a sentence: Smith (2021) found that...
For two authors: MLA (Smith and Lee 42); APA (Smith & Lee, 2021). For three or more: MLA (Smith et al. 42); APA (Smith et al., 2021).
The list at the end
MLA calls it Works Cited; APA calls it References. Both are alphabetized by the author's last name and use a hanging indent, where every line after the first is indented half an inch.
Book
MLA: Walker, Matthew. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. Scribner, 2017.
APA: Walker, M. (2017). Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. Scribner.
Notice the differences: APA uses initials instead of first names, puts the year right after the author and uses sentence case for titles, capitalizing only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns.
Journal article
MLA: Lee, Ana, and Ben Ortiz. "Sleep and Memory in Teenagers." Journal of Adolescent Health, vol. 68, no. 3, 2021, pp. 210–18.
APA: Lee, A., & Ortiz, B. (2021). Sleep and memory in teenagers. Journal of Adolescent Health, 68(3), 210–218. https://doi.org/...
APA italicizes the volume number and includes a DOI when one exists. Both styles give the issue number.
Website page
MLA: "How Much Sleep Do I Need?" Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 Sept. 2022, www.cdc.gov/sleep.
APA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022, September 14). How much sleep do I need? https://www.cdc.gov/sleep
When a page has no individual author, both styles let an organization stand in as the author. If there is no date, MLA can include the date you accessed it, and APA uses "n.d." for "no date."
Side-by-side summary
- In-text: MLA (Author page); APA (Author, year).
- Author names: MLA full first name; APA initials.
- Date position: MLA near the end; APA right after the author.
- Title case: MLA capitalizes major words; APA uses sentence case for articles and books.
- List name: MLA Works Cited; APA References.
- Title page: MLA usually none (a heading on page one); APA student papers use a title page.
Tips for getting citations right
- Record the details as you research: author, title, publisher or site, date, page numbers and URL or DOI.
- Citation generators save time but often make mistakes with capitalization and missing dates. Always check the output.
- Cite paraphrases and summaries, not just direct quotes. Using someone's ideas without credit is plagiarism even if the words are yours.
- Every in-text citation must match an entry in the final list, and every entry must be cited somewhere.
Common mistakes
- Putting a comma in MLA in-text citations: (Smith 42), not (Smith, 42).
- Forgetting the year in APA in-text citations.
- Using title case for article titles in APA.
- Listing sources in the order you used them instead of alphabetically.
Practice
Cite in-text, in both styles, page 15 of a 2020 book by Maria Chen. Answer: MLA (Chen 15); APA (Chen, 2020, p. 15).
Last reviewed 2026-10-23 by the BrainBoost team.