Footnotes, APA, MLA or Chicago: Which Style to Use

Choosing a citation style is one of the first decisions you make when writing a thesis — and one of the most commonly confused. Footnotes, APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago, Harvard: each records the author, year and page number differently, and your supervisor or publisher usually requires one specific format. This guide shows how these styles differ, who uses them, and how the same source looks in each one.

Footnotes

Footnotes are a classic of the humanities. You place the reference at the bottom of the page, marked with a number in the text, and give the full bibliographic description there. The advantage is that the reader sees the source immediately, without jumping to the end of the paper, and you can easily add authorial commentary.

The layout is author–title–place–year–page. A sample entry (names and titles are illustrative):

Smith J., Introduction to Methodology, London 2019, p. 42.

For a repeated reference to the same work, abbreviations are used (ibid., op. cit.). This style dominates literature, history and philosophy programs at many European universities.

APA 7

APA (American Psychological Association, 7th edition) is the standard of the social sciences: psychology, education, sociology, economics, management. Instead of footnotes it uses in-text citations in author–year format, with full descriptions going to a "References" list at the end.

In text: (Smith, 2019, p. 42). In the reference list, the same entry (example):

Smith, J. (2019). Introduction to methodology. Example Press.

APA emphasizes the publication year right next to the name — because in the social sciences the currency of a source matters.

MLA 9

MLA (Modern Language Association, 9th edition) is the style of language studies, literary criticism and cultural studies, mainly in the English-speaking world. The in-text citation is author and page, with no year, and full descriptions appear on a "Works Cited" list.

In text: (Smith 42). In the works-cited list (example):

Smith, John. Introduction to Methodology. Example Press, 2019.

MLA drops the year in text because in literary analysis what matters is the location within the work, not the publication date.

Chicago and Harvard

Chicago has two variants. Notes and Bibliography (footnotes + bibliography) resembles the footnote style and is popular in history and the English-language humanities. Author-Date works like APA. A sample note:

John Smith, Introduction to Methodology (London: Example Press, 2019), 42.

Harvard is not a single rigid standard but a family of author–year styles close to APA, often used in the natural and exact sciences and at British universities. Always check the specific version your department requires.

Which field uses which style

Style	Citation type	Typical fields
Footnotes	Note at bottom of page	Literature, history, philosophy
APA 7	Author–year in text	Psychology, education, economics
MLA 9	Author–page in text	Languages, literary studies
Chicago	Notes or author–year	History, humanities
Harvard	Author–year in text	Exact and natural sciences

The golden rule: the style is dictated by your supervisor, department or publisher. Always start with your department's guidelines — and if there are none, pick the style typical for your field from the table above.

How cytado switches styles automatically

The biggest pain comes when your paper is already written in one style and your supervisor asks you to switch to another. Reworking every entry by hand is hours of work and a source of typos. cytado stores each source's data structurally — author, title, year and page separately — so it generates the written form on demand. You change the style from footnotes to APA with one click, and the whole bibliography reformats consistently, keeping the printed page numbers.

Summary

Citation style follows your field and your university's requirements: footnotes and Chicago for the humanities, APA and Harvard for social and exact sciences, MLA for language studies. The same source looks different in each, but it differs mainly in order and punctuation, not content. If you want to be sure your entries are correct in the chosen style — and be able to switch it in a second — try the cytado bibliography generator.