Academic writing could be challenging for students at times, but do you know what’s even more taxing than academic writing? Identify the sources of external references that have been incorporated into an essay.
As a student, there is a possibility that you must have written a considerable number essays for your lecturers. Consequently, it is safe to suppose that you are acquainted with the notion of references. Still, let’s comprehend the sense of what’s going on. Referencing is the practice of identifying and attributing your contributions to a project.
A structured essay reference system is vital while writing any academic work. It is possible to adopt several different tactics to accomplish this goal, and it may not even be totally up to you. Several academic institutions and journals have guidelines for how their students’ work should be referenced.
Each main essay referencing style has its benefits that differ depending on your individual needs, but it is still helpful to know all of them as an essay writer. To prevent the impression that producing a paper using a particular method involves a lot of guesswork, this guide will go through the most critical aspects of each style.
We’ll go through some of the most common reference styles academic publications use to make things easier for you. Academic reference styles may be further subdivided into formal, informal, and casual, depending on how sources are recorded.
- The Documenting note style: If you fall into this group, you must include footnotes or endnotes in your work. These notes are called “superscripts,” which are a sequence of numbers in certain areas. When a footnote or endnote is used, the reference appears in the text, whereas a footnote indicates it appears at the bottom of the page. The MHRA reference style and the Oxford referencing style are included in this list of main referencing styles.
- The Parenthetical style: wide range of academic essays requires the parenthetical style. When employing parenthetical references, in-text references are commonly provided before the end of a phrase. It includes some of the most used reference styles, such as MLA, APA, and Harvard.
- The Numbered Style: This form of reference is commonly referred to by using a sequence of Arabic numbers encased in square brackets or superscripts, depending on the writing style. After writing the text, the references are numbered in the order in which they appear in the text, beginning with the most recent.
There are a lot of different sub-styles to reference other sources.
- The MLA citation style is employed: As the name indicates, the modern Language Association (MLA) was the driving force behind the development of MLA citations. At the time of this writing, it is in its eighth edition. Researchers in the domains of language and literature often use this method. The parenthetical citation style, which contains the author’s name and the page number, is common. To facilitate the study of psychology and social sciences, the American Psychological Association (APA) reference style was created. Initially, it was utilized to do research in psychology and sociology.
On the other hand, many other scholars utilize this work as a starting point for their research projects. It is now in its seventh edition. The author-date approach of parenthetical reference is often used in this referencing manner.
- The Chicago style: The Chicago Manual of Method was the driving force for establishing this reference. It comes in both Chicago A and Chicago B variants for your convenience. A footnote or an endnote may be used to cite sources in the Chicago A writing style. However, parenthetical author-date referencing is used in Chicago B rather than Chicago A inside the text.
- The Turabian style: Because of the Chicago technique, the Turabian citation was created. It was created to get students to work on a research article. The Turabian referencing style’s documentary note and author-date systems are comparable to the Chicago style.
- The Harvard style: In economics, it is usual practice to cite sources in this way. As a result, several organizations have developed a style of reference that resembles Harvard’s. The Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS), the British Standard Institution, and several Harvard editions are only a handful of the most renowned instances of the author-date method.
- OSCOLA referencing system: Using this referencing is common in legal academic writing in English. The Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities is one example of a documentary note format (OSCOLA). All of the source’s information is included as a footnote in a documentary note.
- American Medical Association (AMA): The American Medical Association created this reference style, which is why it is so prevalent in the medical industry. It also uses a numeral system that uses a superscript digit to represent textual numbering.
