Difference Between MLA and APA Format

MLA style is designed for the humanities, where the primary focus is often on the text itself rather than the date it was written. Because literary analysis involves frequent quoting from specific pages of a book or poem, the in-text citation prioritizes the page number. In the Works Cited list, authors are listed by their full names to give credit to the individual creator. Titles of books and articles use title case, meaning every major word is capitalized.

APA style is the standard for scientific and social scientific research. In these fields, the date of a study is vital because older research may be outdated. This is why the publication year appears immediately after the author's name in both in-text citations and the Reference list. APA uses initials for first names to reduce gender bias and employs sentence case for titles in the reference list, meaning only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.