What Are The Most Common Formatting And Referencing Styles?

Formatting And Referencing Styles
In academia, the presentation of the information is more important than the idea itself. The proper citation, formatting, and referencing styles ensure the readability of the document. It converts the researched material into a common language shared by almost every scholar in the relevant discipline. Every academic discipline has its requirements and specifications for the formatting and referencing styles. These specifications are published as the requirements of the documents that the writer must cater to. If the requirements will not be followed, the result is not the acceptability of the document. This article aims to briefly describe the most common formatting and referencing styles used in the academic discipline. The formatting and referencing styles will be discussed here by experts of assignment writing services with examples. It helps the student understand the major and minor differences between various common referencing and formatting styles.

Formatting Styles:

Colleges and universities have used various formatting styles. Every academic discipline has its requirements and specifications for formatting. The formatting styles vary from one style to another, with minor and major differences. Each style has its requirements and specifications. If the requirements will not be followed, the result is not the acceptability of the document. Ensuring the formatting in the document enhances the chances of approval and obtaining good grades in it. Following are the most commonly used formatting styles in the academic discipline;

Formatting Style

Font size

Use

Writing Style

Margins

Paragraphs

Page No.

Justified

Bibliography

APA

11 or 12 with double line spacing

Academia

Times New Roman, Arial, Georgia

1”

1/2”

Top right corner

Left Margin

(left-justified text having a major right ragged edge)

Hanging

MLA

12 with double line spacing

Arts and Humanities

Times New Roman

1”

1/2”

Upper right-hand corner

Left Margin

(left-justified text having a major right ragged edge)

Bibliography style with endnotes or footnotes.

Hanging

 

CMS

12 with double line spacing

Publishing

Times New Roman

1”

1/2”

The top right corner of the Paper

left-justified text having a major "right ragged edge."

Hanging


Referencing Styles:

The information obtained from existing research studies on the topic of the study is cited. The aim of citing is to avoid international crime that is plagiarism. Plagiarism is the copying of the work of others without citing them in the manner required by academic scholars. The referencing in a document is required for acceptability in the academic discipline. If the requirements will not be followed in referencing style, the result is not the acceptability of the document. It provides strong validation of the statements incorporated in the document. It is the fundamental information from which the respective author and year of the publication are identified.

By proper citation, the writer provides accessibility to the reader to the origin and validation of his/her comments or statements in the document. In referencing styles, there are various other ways of styling the reference. Each style is different from one another, with minor and major differences. But the aim of the referencing is the same. The aim is the communication between the scholars and validation of the statements by linking with previous studies. Some referencing styles include the page number or even the title of the topic. Following are the most commonly used referencing styles in the academic discipline;

APA:

In this style, the author's last name and year of the publication are cited in the text of the document. It is most commonly used in the academic discipline, including social sciences such as psychology, management sciences, and education.

1- In-text citation: (Coombs & Laufer, 2018, p.28)
Bibliography: Coombs, W. T., & Laufer, D. (2018). Global crisis management–current research and future directions. Journal of International Management, 24(3), 199-203.

2- Intext citation: (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016)
Bibliography: Hoffman, K. D., & Bateson, J. E. (2016). Services marketing: concepts, strategies, & cases. Cengage learning.

Harvard:

The APA and Harvard styles are both the same with a minor difference of “and”. In APA, and’s symbol (&) is used both in the in-text citation and bibliography. But in Harvard referencing style, simple “and” is used both in the in-text citation and bibliography.

1- In-text citation: (Sarpong and Maclean, 2017)
Bibliography: Sarpong, D. and Maclean, M., 2017. Service nepotism in cosmopolitan transient social spaces. Work, employment and society, 31(5), pp.764-781.

2- In-text citation: (Jobber and Ellis-Chadwick, 2019)
Bibliography: Jobber, D. and Ellis-Chadwick, F., 2019. EBOOK: Principles and Practice of Marketing, 9e. McGraw Hill.

MLA:

In this referencing style, the author's last name along with the page number is cited. It is most commonly used in the English language, media studies, or literature discipline.

1- In-text citation: (Revella and Brian 16)
Bibliography: Revell, Brian J. "Brexit and tariff-rate quotas on EU imports: a complex problem." EuroChoices 16.2 (2017): 10-17.

2- In-text citation: (Hegewisch and Ariane 67)
Bibliography: Hegewisch, Ariane. Policy and Practice in European Human Resource Management: The Price Waterhouse Cranfield Survey. Routledge, 2017.

Chicago:

According to experts of a PhD dissertation writing service, in this referencing style, the author's last name, year, and page numbers are cited. It is most commonly used in literature, humanities, advanced arts, and history.

Intext citation: (Opute and John 2020, 31-37)
Bibliography: Opute, John E. "Training and Development." In HRM in Africa, pp. 31-37. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020.

Conclusion:

It is inferred from this article, every discipline, business, education, psychology has its ways of referencing. Some may refer to APA, Harvard, Chicago, or MLA to use in the documents. The proper citation, formatting, and referencing styles ensure the readability of the document. It converts the researched material into a common language shared by almost every scholar in the relevant discipline. This article has provided a brief on the most common formatting and referencing styles used in the academic discipline with examples. It will help the student understand the major and minor differences between various common referencing and formatting styles.

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