APA vs MLA: Side-by-Side Citation Style Comparison
Most students get assigned one style and never switch. When you do switch — or when a class lets you choose — the differences between APA 7th edition and MLA 9th edition matter in small but graded-down ways.
In-text citation
APA: (Brown, 2018, p. 42)
MLA: (Brown 42)
Notice the punctuation, the page-number prefix, and the comma placement — those are the bits professors mark down.
Reference list entry (a book by one author)
APA:
Brown, B. (2018). Dare to lead. Random House.
MLA:
Brown, Brené. Dare to Lead. Random House, 2018.
Author names
APA: Last, F. M. with initials only. Up to 20 authors listed; an ellipsis for 21+ before the final author.
MLA: Last, First M. with full first names. First author inverted only; subsequent authors in normal order.
Dates
APA: Year in parentheses immediately after author: (2018). Day/month appear only for newspapers, blogs, and dated web content.
MLA: Day Month Year format with no commas: 14 Mar. 2024. Months over four letters are abbreviated.
Where each is used
APA is the default in social sciences, education, psychology, nursing, and most STEM fields outside the humanities.
MLA dominates literature, languages, cultural studies, and most humanities courses.
Frequently asked
Can I convert a APA paper to MLA automatically?
No tool does this losslessly. The author order, date format, and italicization rules differ. Our generator can produce either style from the same input fields — easier to redo references than to convert them.
If my professor accepts either, which should I pick?
Pick the one used most in your field — social sciences, education, psychology, nursing, and most STEM fields outside the humanities for APA, literature, languages, cultural studies, and most humanities courses for MLA. Future readers will be expecting that one.
Do the in-text citation rules differ as much as the reference rules?
Yes. The in-text format is usually what catches most students out first because it appears more often than the reference list.