Published: 2025-10-26
Last Updated: 2025-10-26
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The point of writing academic papers varies from person to person. The Universities are mostly following policies and give the professors some flexibility. Most recently, the recommendation is to follow the professors requirements for specific elements in the paper even if it slighly deviates from the standard.
Having all the papers with a consistent format in each class helps with a uniform look. This is important in organizations with letterheads, business cards, dress codes, and portfolios using an organizational look. Its assumed the universities may have desired a consistency at some point with the look of academic papers.
The word common has connotations in the US, it does not mean anything else than widely circulated. It can be popular, it can be dreaded. It may be expensive, cheap, average priced, look good, look sharp, need improvement, or seen as icky. The point is that it is common, it most often means readily available and well understood.
While these formats are common, there are variances in the actual paper such as the student and professor names, the class, the paper title, and the actual writing. Besides element formats like page number location, bolding or not bolding titles, style of inline reference or citation. These formats have a recommended writing style. In a strict class, the writing style can cause failure or a lowered grade, in a lenient class, the professor may point out improvements on the style guide writing standard.
APA - Written in observational format, even when writing about the self. Instead of writing "I went to the store" or "I observed strange reactions in the lab equipment", the person would write "during a trip to the store ... something was observed" or "Lab equipment has been observed to have strange reactions during some type of testing".
Professors are often least flexible for APA in 300 or 400 level classes because in 100 to 200 level classes the student is still learning, and in 500+ level classes, the student may have developed their own APA compliant style. Sentences such as "The store had an event happen" or "The lab equipment had a reaction" may not be APA compliant. The writing manual explains the details.
MLA - Most flexible in written style, the most important parts are the header, the page number, and the top half of the first page. Title page is optional and suggested for group work, citations can be endnotes or on a separate page. This format works well for 1-2 pages. It allows 11 pt to 13 pt font.
MLA can be frustrating because it does not give definitive guidelines. It provides lots of suggestions. Even section headings are suggested to be different than other section headings. Once its understood that there is lots of flexibility with the style, it is a lot faster to type out a paper and do a few quick formatting changes. The flexibility can help when there is a word count or page count, for example decreasing the font to 11.
Chicago Rumored to be the preferred format for business majors. Its actually centered on writing manuscripts. Which can be a book, manual, or reference guide. It can be a museum piece or anthropological finding. While the format may seem fancy, and other people using the writing style may immediately recognize it, formatting a first paper in this format will take some time.
One of the things to observe about manuscripts is that books aren't written with those processes anymore for first time authors. They just write the book and divide it into chapters which can include some rough outlines or placeholders. If someone is submitting a manuscript, they will likely already understand what a manuscript is and have at least some experience with manuscripts. The reference will help with touchups and adding an official look to the manuscript.
Plagiarism in an academic setting is viewed at questioningly. The courses normally have a suggested or required book, and its implied that the book, instructor notes, and lectures are the main references. People do check papers for things not included in this context. In a professional library, shelves of over 5,000 books may be attributed to a few groups of authors. It takes a few minutes to compare some ideas to the writings of the topic experts.
Most authors are honest, and eventually want to retire. They also want to make sure that people that reference or build on their work, correctly represent their ideas and writing. This is not as complicated as it seems and can be easily worked into a writing process.
Writing Suggestions
Write out a paper using mostly the main text of a course. Find other related sources that support or provide contrasting viewpoints. Write a few quotes or parapharases with their inline citation and include them in the reference section.
With practice, it becomes easier to look up various authors and related topics, read through their writing, and then write the paper putting place holders in for the citations. After the paper is written, the citation or reference page is put together and some small edits may be done for formatting. A lot of people don't like a paragraph to end with less than 1/2 a line, 3/4 to full is most recommended.
The issue with inline references, is that it distracts from the writing. This is a complaint for readers of academic writing. They have requested to keep the citations to a minimum to put them at the end of a sentence or end of paragraph as much as possible, and to minimize citations or references that are overly informative.
Quotation Indicators
* keep in mind, references with contrasting viewpoints
The professor, teacher, or instructor will indicate which writing style and format will be used in their class. Most are flexible. MLA and APA are most popular, Chicago has a lot of interest.