Widely Used Citation Styles

Widely Used Citation Styles

  • APA (American Psychological Association) – Common in psychology, education, and social sciences.
  • MLA (Modern Language Association) – Used in literature, humanities, and language studies.
  • Chicago/Turabian – History, arts, publishing; has two systems: Notes & Bibliography (footnotes) and Author–Date.
  • Harvard – Popular in the UK, Australia, and international academia; author–date system.
  • IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) – Engineering, computer science, technical fields.
  • AMA (American Medical Association) – Medicine, health sciences.
  • ACS (American Chemical Society) – Chemistry.
  • CSE (Council of Science Editors) – Biology and natural sciences; citation-name, citation-sequence, or name–year systems.
  • Vancouver – Biomedical sciences; numbered referencing.

Specialized or Discipline-Specific Styles

  • Bluebook – Law and legal writing in the U.S.
  • ALWD (Association of Legal Writing Directors) – Alternative to Bluebook, for legal studies.
  • OSCOLA (Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities) – Law in the UK and Europe.
  • MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Association) – Humanities, especially literature.
  • SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) – Religious and theological studies.
  • AAA (American Anthropological Association) – Anthropology.
  • ASA (American Sociological Association) – Sociology.
  • APA 7th (variant) – Expanded edition, also adapted for nursing and education.

Publisher- or Journal-Specific Styles

  • Nature – Sciences; numerical style.
  • Science – Specific format for research articles.
  • Elsevier / Cell Press / Springer / Wiley formats – Journals often mandate their own citation templates.
  • ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) – Computer science.

Regional / Institutional Styles

  • MHRA (UK-focused humanities style)
  • DIN 1505 / ISO 690 (Germany, Europe) – Technical and academic publications.
  • Turabian – Simplified Chicago style for students.

Summary:

The “big four” are APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard (most recognized worldwide). Disciplines then branch into their own: IEEE for engineering, AMA for medicine, Bluebook for law, ACS for chemistry, Vancouver for health sciences, etc.