Referencing and citations are the two big reasons that make an academic assignment exhausting for students. Most students fail to do these two aspects in the proper format. With several styles available in the form of Harvard, Chicago, OSCOLA, MLA, APA, and Vancouver referencing, you may be overburdened with options. Under these circumstances, consult an academic expert for suggestions. It will definitely be of great help. Let’s have a look at the most popular referencing styles:

  1. a) MLA referencing:It was developed by the Modern Language Association, as the name suggests. MLA referencing is widely used in literature subjects and humanities subjects. In this style, you need to implement the parenthetical citing format containing the author’s name and the page number.
  2. b) APA referencing: The American Psychological Association developed this style. In previous days, it was mainly used in psychological studies and social sciences. Unlike MLA referencing, this style implements an author-date system with the information enclosed in brackets.
  3. c) Vancouver referencing:The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors created the Vancouver referencing style. As it was crafted by medical journal editors, it is primarily employed in the medical field. It is comparatively tougher than other referencing styles. However, with the advent of the Vancouver referencing generator, things have become easier these days for students. It strictly follows a numeric system, where the source is indicated by a specific number with the information provided thereafter.
  4. d) Harvard referencing:Though used mostly in the field of economics, it comes with no official manual. Harvard style is also known as Swinburne referencing. This referencing style varies between organizations and institutions. However, the most well-known versions are the British Standard Institution and the Australian Government Publishing Service. It is similar to APA referencing as Harvard style also has the author-date structure of parenthetical referencing.
  5. e) Chicago referencing:This referencing type was developed by the Chicago Manual of Style. Chicago A and Chicago B are the two variant of this style. In the former, the student/researcher gets the scope to cite sources in both footnotes and endnotes. On the contrary, Chicago B implements the parenthetical author-date referencing in the content.
  6. f) OSCOLA referencing:OSCOLA style of referencing is created by Oxford University. Law students need to adhere to this system while presenting the paper. Here, citations are placed in the footnotes at the page bottom. A documentary note style is used in this referencing type, and you get the source details in these footnotes.
  7. g) IEEE referencing:The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers developed this style and are mainly used in technical assignments and IT journals. A numeric system is followed in IEEE. However, instances may arise when IEEE doesn’t cover the source type. In this case, resorting to a Chicago referencing style is probably the best approach.

Referencing needs to be done whatever the academic assignment. With a reference, you can justify the stated information to the readers. Also, it gives an authentic touch while highlighting that you have researched the topic well. Before implementing any of the above styles, it’s necessary to learn their proper usage and implementation. Go through the referencing types mentioned above, especially if you are unaware of any.