Both APA and MLA are referencing styles: they explain in details how to deal with citations and references in writing.
While APA treats a larger number of aspects regarding style, like structure of the page, footnotes, abstract, etc., MLA is more concentrated on referencing and citing, telling you how to write a reference of ANY type of writing available in the world!!
Instinctively I prefer APA, it looks clearer and easier for one's eyes!
Some basic differences concerning the styles in referencing a source are:
-APA uses italics for the title, while MLA prefers underlining it.
-APA tends to use the initial for the name of the author, while MLA tends to prefer using the complete firstname.
-APA puts the year of publication right after the author's name, while MLA puts it at the end of the reference.
Anyway, these are pure matters of choice: no style is better than the other. The important thing is once you've choosen one, you have to keep using it.
Without realizing it, in my BA thesis I used APA style, which my Professor recommended me.
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Hi Valentina,
RispondiEliminaHope you're doing well :)
I totally agree with you on the analysis you did on MLA and APA. As I said to Serena, if I had to choose one of them I'd choose APA, epecially for all the info it gives about the formatting of an academic paper.
Your writing style is really fluent and easy to follow. Maybe, I would have put a clickable reference to both APA and MLA pages...for the non-experts, unlike us :)
And now some grammar feedback:
- in the first sentences I would put a semi-colon instead of a colon. I remember I've learned (WikiHow page on punctuation) that colon is used for lists and reported speech;
- I would use simply 'prefers' or 'uses' instead of 'tends', since APA is listing rules rather 'tendencies';
- I'm not sure, but I would say 'no one style is better than the other', that is to say, I would add 'one' after 'no';
- I think that 'recommend' should be followed by 'to' (CobuildCollins) because it's like saying 'my professor recommended it to me'.
BTW, I think that these are just little mistakes due to distraction...nothing serious ;)
Bye Bye
Giorgia