You must be familiar with our topic if you are a researcher. In fact, you may have landed on this page because you want to understand the differences between various referencing styles, which include MLA, APA, Chicago, Vancouver, and Harvard.
Among these, MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association) and Harvard are the most popular citation methods used by researchers all over the world. Though all these methods are used to assign a professional formal format to the research paper, there are variations in them
Moreover, your research guidelines may state that you must use a certain referencing method with appropriate in-text citations.
You may see this kind of instruction whether you have to complete an assignment, essay, research paper, thesis or dissertation. The reason is that citation of authentic resources is essential for research.
Not just that, your work may be regarded as unethical copyright infringement, also called plagiarism, if you don't properly credit the credible resources.
Therefore, you should be aware of the citation method used by a university or a department if you are writing a piece of academic content for them. If you are wondering, “Is Harvard APA or MLA the same?”, keep reading our blog.
We will shed light on these three referencing styles.
Without further ado, let's get started:
The main difference between these citation methods is their domain. The APA referencing format, as implied by its name, is usually used in the field of social sciences, while MLA is predominantly used within the arts and humanities.
Harvard, on the other hand, is utilised in both social and natural sciences and humanities. Now that we have discussed the differences in the domains of these three referencing formats, it's time to understand “is MLA the same as Harvard” in terms of in-text citations. The following section will answer the question.
First, let's talk about the MLA style. It uses in-text citations instead of footnotes or endnotes. The primary aspects included in the parenthetical system or the in-text citations lie in the way they are written. The author’s name comes before the page number you are citing.
(Arthur, p.20)
Furthermore, the citations are split by the semicolon if you wish to quote citations of more than one writer.
However, if you are thinking, “Is MLA, Harvard the same in regards to their parenthetical system?” Then the answer is yes.
Their parenthetical systems include the writer’s surname and the publication’s year.
In contrast with them, the APA style employs the commas to split the content in the in text citations, while the MLA style doesnt utilise the comma.
If you are wondering, “Is MLA Harvard referencing” of the authors the same? Then read this section carefully. We clearly explain the differences between the citation styles in this regard
For a single author, we cite their surname with the year of publication.
Here, we connect the two writers' names with & and then insert the year of publication.
Here, we add the first writer's name and then insert the et. al., which implies “and others”. Then we write the publications year. Plus, we cite more than one research within one parenthesis with semi colons.
If we have to cite the research of several authors, we add the writers' surnames in the brackets. But if there are three or more writers, then we add et. al after the first author's name.
Here, if we have to cite the research of two or three writers, we add the names in the same order as that of the citation. But we add the word “and” rather than an ampersand.
Harvard is the same as APA if the research has four or more authors. In such a situation, we add the first writer’s surname with et al.
Here, we add the term “references” to indicate the reference listings.
“Kennedy, M. A., & Robinson, R. C. (2021). Exploring factors related to outdoor advertising recall in the UK. John Wiley & Sons.”
In the MLA citation format, the references listing is added on the page ‘Works Cited.”
“Kennedy, Mathews. A., & Robert C. Robinson. (2021). Exploring factors related to outdoor advertising recall in the UK. John Wiley & Sons.”
Here, we add the term references list to indicate the reference listings.
“Kennedy, M. A., & Robert C. R., 2021. Exploring factors related to outdoor advertising recall in the UK. John Wiley & Sons.”
In the APA format, we have to only capitalise the first word of the title, subtitle and proper nouns.
In the MLA citation method, we have to capitalise all the major words in the source's title.
In the APA referencing method, we write the author’s first name as initials and only add their last name in full.
In the MLA citation format, we add the writer's first and surname in full.
Harvard is the same as APA in terms of referencing the author's name.
Students have to take information from the works of previous researchers to add to their own papers. But giving credit to the authors you have taken help from is crucial for your research work to be considered valid. This way is called citations. You need to cite references in your research, otherwise, your work may be flagged as plagiarised because the detection tool will highlight the copied content.
However, if you give credit to the authors, then your writing will be considered authentic. Otherwise, your thesis will be rejected, and you may even be expelled from your institute. It means that understanding citation methods is necessary for scholars. Which is why our experts have designed this piece to remove your worries.
We hope that now you clearly understand how to cite references in the Harvard, APA and MLA styles. We know that many research scholars face issues while citing in the Harvard and MLA formats, as they look similar in some aspects.
