Your professor said 'use APA format' and you have no idea what that means? Here's the guide.
APA 7th Edition
Used in: Psychology, social sciences, education, nursing. In-text: (Author, Year). Bibliography: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of work. Publisher. DOI. Key rule: Use past tense for research descriptions ('Smith (2024) found that...').
MLA 9th Edition
Used in: English, literature, humanities, philosophy. In-text: (Author Page). Bibliography: Author. Title. Publisher, Year. Key rule: No title page required. Use present tense for literary analysis ('Hamlet shows...').
Chicago 17th Edition
Used in: History, business, fine arts. Two styles: Notes-Bibliography (footnotes) and Author-Date. The footnote style is most common: a superscript number in text + full citation at the bottom of the page.
Common Mistakes
Mixing citation styles in one paper. Missing DOIs for online sources. Incorrect capitalization (APA: only first word capitalized; MLA: all major words capitalized). Not including access dates for web sources (Chicago requires them).
Use our citation generator to create properly formatted citations in any style. Paste the URL, ISBN, or DOI and get an instant citation.