APA, MLA and Chicago: what is different
All three styles answer the same questions: who made the source, what it is called, where it appeared and when. They differ in order, punctuation and emphasis. APA puts the date right after the author. MLA puts the container, such as the website or journal, at the center and leaves the year near the end. Chicago notes and bibliography is built for footnotes, so every source gets a full note the first time you cite it and a short note after that.
| APA 7 | MLA 9 | Chicago 17 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Used in | Psychology, nursing, business, social sciences | Language and literature | Literature, history, the arts |
| List title | References | Works Cited | Bibliography |
| Author names | Last name and initials | Full names, first author inverted | Full names, first author inverted |
| Date | In parentheses after the author | Near the end, as 4 May 2020 | After the publisher, as May 4, 2020 |
| Title case | Sentence case for works, title case for journals | Title case | Title case |
| In the text | (Author, year) | (Author page) | Footnote |
One book and one website in all three styles
The same two sources, a book by Michael Pollan and a web article by Devon Price, formatted by this citation generator. Note the moving date, the italics and the different capitalization of the titles.
| Style | Book | Website |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | Pollan, M. (2006). The omnivore's dilemma: A natural history of four meals. Penguin Press. | Price, D. (2018, March 23). Laziness does not exist. Medium. https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01 |
| MLA 9 | Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Penguin Press, 2006. | Price, Devon. “Laziness Does Not Exist.” Medium, 23 Mar. 2018, humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01. |
| Chicago 17 | Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press, 2006. | Price, Devon. “Laziness Does Not Exist.” Medium. March 23, 2018. https://humanparts.medium.com/laziness-does-not-exist-3af27e312d01. |
What to include for each source type
- Website or web page: author or organization, page title, website name, publication or update date, URL. If the page has no date, note when you accessed it.
- Book: author or editors, title and subtitle, edition if it is not the first, publisher and year. Chicago 17th edition also wants the city of publication. Add a DOI or URL for an ebook found online.
- Chapter in an edited book: the chapter author and title, then the editors, book title, page range of the chapter, publisher and year.
- Journal article: authors, article title, journal name, volume, issue, year, page range and the DOI. The DOI is the most stable link, so use it instead of a URL whenever the article has one.
- Newspaper or magazine article: author, headline, publication name, full date, and the URL for online articles or the page for print.
- YouTube or online video: the person or channel who made it, the video title, the platform, the upload date and the URL.
- Report: the organization or authors, report title, report number if there is one, publisher and year, plus the URL.
In-text citations and footnotes
In APA and MLA, every entry in your list should be cited in your paper, and every in-text citation needs an entry in the list. APA names the author and year, adding a page for quotes. MLA names the author and page with no comma. Chicago uses a superscript number that points to a footnote. Here is a quote from page 45 of the Pollan book and from page 270 of an article by Kahneman and Tversky:
| Style | One author | Two authors |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | (Pollan, 2006, p. 45) | (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979, p. 270) |
| MLA 9 | (Pollan 45) | (Kahneman and Tversky 270) |
| Chicago 17 | Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 45. | Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica 47, no. 2 (1979): 270, https://doi.org/10.2307/1914185. |
With three or more authors, APA and MLA shorten to the first author and et al., as in (Aron et al., 2019). Chicago lists up to three names in a note and switches to et al. from four. After the first full note, Chicago uses a short note with the last name, a short title and the page, such as Pollan, Omnivore's Dilemma, 45..
Common citation mistakes
- Copying the title case of a website into APA. APA reference titles use sentence case. Only proper nouns, the first word and the first word after a colon keep their capitals.
- Missing or wrong italics. Whole works such as books, journals and websites are italic. Parts of a work, like articles, chapters and web pages in MLA and Chicago, go in quotation marks.
- Treating the website as the author. Use an organization as author only if it actually wrote the page. Otherwise start with the title.
- Skipping the DOI. If an article has one, include it, written as https://doi.org/ followed by the number.
- Forgetting the hanging indent. In all three styles, the second and following lines of each entry are indented; APA and MLA use half an inch.
- Mixing styles. Pick one style and use it for every entry and every in-text citation in the paper.
Style guides leave room for judgment, and many instructors and journals add their own rules, for example about access dates, URLs or the newer Chicago 18th edition. Always check your instructor's requirements and adjust the citation if they differ.
How to use the citation generator
- 1Pick the style, APA 7, MLA 9 or Chicago 17, and the kind of source you want to cite.
- 2Add the authors one per row, then fill in the title, the date and the other details you can find on the source. The reference updates as you type.
- 3In APA, tap any name the generator lowercased to keep it capitalized. Add a page number if you quote the source.
- 4Copy the entry and the in-text citation, or add the source to your list, then copy or download the whole sorted list for your paper.
Frequently asked questions
Is this citation generator accurate?
It follows the published rules of APA 7th edition, MLA 9th edition and Chicago 17th edition for each source type, including author lists, dates, italics, punctuation and page ranges, and it is tested against example entries from the style guides. A generator can only format what you enter, though. Check names, dates and titles against the source, keep proper nouns capitalized in APA titles, and follow your instructor if their requirements differ.
Which citation style should I use?
Use the style your instructor, school or journal asks for. As a rule of thumb, APA is used in psychology, nursing, business and the social sciences, MLA in language and literature courses, and Chicago notes and bibliography in literature, history and the arts. If nobody tells you, ask before you start, because switching styles later means redoing every citation.
Why does APA change my title to lowercase?
APA 7 writes the titles of articles, books, web pages and reports in sentence case: only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns get a capital letter. The generator cannot know every name, so it shows the words it lowercased as chips. Tap a chip to keep that word capitalized, or turn off the capitalization fix to use your title exactly as typed.
Do I need an access date?
In MLA 9 the access date is optional, and most useful when an online source has no date or may change or disappear. Chicago asks for an access date when an online source has no publication or revision date. APA 7 uses a retrieval date only for pages that are designed to change over time and are not archived. The generator adds the access date only where the chosen style uses it.
What if my source has no author or no date?
Leave the author rows empty and the entry starts with the title, which is also what the in-text citation uses. Leave the year empty and APA shows (n.d.) for no date. MLA leaves the date out, and for an online source without a date, MLA and Chicago both use the date you accessed it instead. Do not use a website name as the author unless an organization really wrote the page.
How do I format the reference list?
Put the list on a new page at the end of your paper, titled References in APA, Works Cited in MLA or Bibliography in Chicago. Sort entries alphabetically by the first word, double-space them in APA and MLA, and use a hanging indent, half an inch in APA and MLA. Copy all and the .html download keep the italics and the hanging indent when you paste into Word or Google Docs.
Is my information saved or sent anywhere?
No. Citations are built in your browser, and nothing is sent to a server. Your list is kept only while the page is open, unless you turn on Remember my list on this device, which stores it in this browser until you clear it.