Citation Styles

Contents

ACS | AMA | APA | ASA | Bluebook | Chicago/Turabian | CSE | MLA | Irvine

APA

The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is the style manual of choice for many disciplines in the social sciences. The current edition is the sixth (2010).

IC Library's APA Cheat Sheet
IC Library's APA FAQs
APA Style website
Best of the APA Style Blog (2010 | 2011)
Corrections to the 6th edition
A sample paper is offered by Purdue University.

MLA

MLA is the citation style used by most disciplines in the Humanities. MLA revised its style in 2008 in the MLA Style Manual, and these changes have been incorporated in the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook (May 2009). The guides below use the new 2008/9 standards.

Chicago / Turabian

Chicago is the style manual of choice for history and some other disciplines. Turabian, a simplified guide to the Chicago Manual of Style, is a popular choice at many undergraduate institutions regardless of discipline. Turabian and Chicago offer two documentation systems: 1) footnote/bibliography and 2) parenthetical reference/reference list. The systems are quite different, one more closely resembling MLA, and the other similar to APA. Be careful not to mix the two.

ACS

The ACS Style Guide: Effective Communication of Scientific Information is the style manual of the American Chemical Society. It is currently in its third edition (2006). The guide offers two methods of in-text citation: a numbered system and an author/date system similar to that used by APA.

A brief overview of ACS style is provided by ACS.
The Chemistry Library at the University of Wisconsin, Madison offers a good online guide to using ACS.
A short guide in pdf format is offered by Penn State.

Bluebook

The Bluebook is the style manual for citing legal documents within the United States. It is available at the Research Help Desk.

AMA

AMA manual of style : a guide for authors and editors (print version at Ref Desk R119 .A533 2007) is the style guide for the American Medical Association. The AMA style is used in the field of medicine and other related fields such as public health. The in-text citations are numbered superscripts that correlate with the numbered references in the bibliography that appear in the order that they are cited. At present, the manual is in its 10th edition (2007). Below are some useful links for learning more about the citation style:

Long Island University's AMA Citation Guide is color coded and easy to read.

ASA

The ASA Style Guide is the style manual of the American Sociological Association. It is very similar to the APA Style Manual, with some exceptons, a few due to the fact that the manual was last updated in 1997.

Owl (Purdue) offers a few guides to ASA formatting, including in-text referencing, and References Page Formatting.
Cal State's ASA Style Guide is another brief guide that includes a summary of format requirements and examples of citations.

CSE

Scientific Style and Format (Ref T 11 .S386 2006) is the style manual of the Council of Science Editors. CSE is the style of choice for many disciplines in medicine, biology, and the natural sciences. The manual is now in its seventh edition (2006). CSE offers three different methods for citing materials in-text as well as a standard format for end references.