Types of Referencing Styles

Students often find it difficult to research material for their academic tasks and regard it as the most challenging aspect. But in reality, citing sources for your content is a far more complicated and complex thing for students. Citing sources or referencing from external sources might not be something new to you. By the time you reach college, you are well aware of various academic assignments and projects that often require the use of reference. In that case, you are very well familiar with the topic here.

Proper acknowledgement of sources is what we call as referencing. In terms of academic requirements, referencing is done to provide a proper list of referred sources along with a structured citation format. And for doing that, there are many different types of referencing styles that usually come with a specific set of guidelines as per their significance and use. However, students must be aware of these guidelines that can help them implement the same for their academic paper and its requirement.

If you are also facing issues with your referencing style or are not able to choose one for citation, then here we have provided a more detailed study on these referencing styles that can help you out with your research papers. Further, classification of the various academic referencing styles is based on the three major types, which are as follows-

• Parenthetical styles

Under the parenthetical referencing style, the in-text citations are provided just before the full stop in a sentence occurs.

• Documentary note styles

Here we generally talk about the endnotes and footnotes. Under this referencing style, the in-text citations are provided in the content using different numbers in the form of superscripts. If the complete detail of the reference is provided right beneath the bottom section of the page, then it is termed as footnotes. In contrast, endnotes are placed at the end of the whole paper.

• Numbered styles

When the researcher makes use of Arabic numbers in his paper, then it is termed as numbered referencing style. Under this category, the numbers are usually denoted in the square brackets as superscripts within the content. And the referencing list for the same is provided after the whole content is numbered as per the convenience of the readers.

Some of the major types of referencing styles used by students in their academic papers are as follows-

MLA referencing style

This type of referencing style was proposed by the Modern Language Association. In the present academic scenario, the 8th edition of the MLA referencing style is highly used. Scholars, as well as learners, find it easy to adopt this style of referencing for their academic papers and publications.

IEEE referencing style

This type of referencing style was developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The IEEE referencing style is majorly used in papers of technical studies. For example, Engineering and Information and Technology.

APA referencing style

This style of referencing was adopted by the American Psychological Association. It is majorly used in Social Sciences and Psychology papers and is limited to this section only. This is because its style is very simple and comes with effective characteristics. The 7th edition of APA is being followed in the present academic scenario.

AMA referencing style

When we talk about the medical discipline, this style of referencing is highly used. The ‘AMA’ here stands for “American Medical Association.”

Chicago referencing style

The Chicago Manual of Style includes all the details and requirements regarding the use of this format. However, there are two major types of referencing styles under this category – Chicago A and Chicago B. Under the Chicago A referencing style, the researcher makes use of endnotes and footnotes. Whereas, in Chicago B referencing style, the parenthetical approach is used to mark down the year and name of authors in the in-text citation.

Harvard referencing style

The discipline of economics calls for this style of referencing. Though there’s no specific guidelines and instructions for the use of this format, multiple organizations employ this strategy as per their needs and customized versions.

OSCOLA referencing style

Law academic papers highly make use of the OSCOLA referencing style. Here, the abbreviation ‘OSCOLA’ stands for “Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities.” This style of referencing falls under the category of documentary note method, which is why it employs the use of footnotes in the citation.

The proper use and implementation of referencing style in academic papers is quite a difficult process, which is why students are told to pay proper attention to this discipline. In case you find any difficulty or help regarding your academic assignments or research papers, feel free to contact our online academic writing services for professional help and guidance.