How to format your college papers?

College essay writing assignments wouldn’t give you much trouble if you were allowed to take any topic you liked, conduct a basic research and follow the progress of your thoughts. You would be able to complete such papers with pleasure, wouldn’t you? However, your professors don’t want to make your life any easier. They request content written and formatted according to strict academic standards. When it comes to the formatting stage, it has to be one of the most diligent and boring parts of the entire process.
The challenge becomes greater when you realize that each professor instructs you to use a different referencing style. The following explanation of the 3 most commonly used citation styles will help you make a difference, so the formatting process won’t be as challenging as it initially seems.

1.Chicago Manual of Style

The Chicago style is preferred by many professors who teach courses from social sciences and humanities. However, you should know that this style is also commonly used outside the university, so it won’t do you any harm if you figure out how it functions. Unlike APA and MLA style, the Chicago style doesn’t rely on in-text citations, but on footnotes or endnotes. The Notes and Bibliography (NB) system is the preferred style of referencing, according to which you need to provide the author’s full name, the title of the source you used, information about the publication (date and publisher), and a page number in the footnote.

2.MLA (Modern Language Association) Style

This style is preferred for academic works in the area of humanities (Art, English, Theatre, and so on). Unlike Chicago style, this standardized form of referencing uses in-text citations that direct the readers to the Works Cited page, where more detailed information about the source is provided. The short in-text citations provide the name of the author and a page number, where the cited information is found in the used source. In the Works Cited page, you will provide all sources in alphabetized order and include the name of the author, the title of the source, city of publication, publisher’s name, and the publication year. In the end, you will indicate the type of medium (for example “print”).

3.APA (American Psychological Association) Style

This citation style is usually requested for academic works that belong to the areas of sociology, psychology, and other social sciences. Although it is similar to the previously-described MLA style, the in-text citations are formatted in a slightly different manner. Thus, you will need to include the name of the author and year of publication when providing in-text citations. At the end of the cited sentence, you should also include a page number in parenthesis. According to the APA citation guide, you will need to include a Reference List with citations that provide the name of the author, publication year, book’s title, publication city, and name of the publisher.