Citations

Citation Styles Guide for Canadian Students

Canadian post-secondary institutions use several citation systems depending on faculty and discipline. The three formats students encounter most often are APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association) and Chicago. Each has its own logic, notation and preferred source types — and each has been updated in the last several years, which creates confusion when older guides circulate in classrooms.

This article compares the three styles, identifies which disciplines typically use each, and walks through the formatting details that produce the most errors.

Which style goes with which discipline?

Most Canadian faculties specify a single citation style in their program guidelines or on individual course outlines. When no style is specified, the following conventions are a reasonable starting point:

• APA 7th — Psychology, education, nursing, social work, kinesiology, business and most natural and social sciences.
• MLA 9th — English literature, modern languages, comparative literature, film studies and cultural studies.
• Chicago 17th (Notes–Bibliography) — History, philosophy, theology, art history and some humanities disciplines.
• Chicago 17th (Author–Date) — Archaeology, political science and some social sciences that prefer numbered references over footnotes.

When in doubt, check the course outline or ask the instructor. Some programs — including those at McGill's Faculty of Arts — maintain department-specific style sheets that modify Chicago or MLA conventions for their context.

APA 7th Edition

APA 7th, published in 2019, made several changes from the 6th edition that are still catching students out. The most significant: the running head is no longer required for student papers (only for manuscripts submitted for publication), and the title page format for students differs from the one for professionals.

In-text citations

APA uses the author–date system. For a direct quote or paraphrase, include the author's last name, publication year and, for quotes, a page number:

(Creswell, 2018, p. 47)

For a source with three or more authors, use the first author's name followed by "et al." from the first citation onward: (Smith et al., 2021).

Reference list formatting

All sources appear in a hanging-indent format on a page labelled "References." Entries are alphabetical by author last name. For a journal article, the format is:

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal, volume(issue), page–page. https://doi.org/xxxxx

DOIs are now formatted as hyperlinks (https://doi.org/...) rather than "doi:" prefixes. If a DOI is not available and the article was retrieved from a database with a stable URL, include the URL. If access requires a login, use the journal homepage URL instead.

MLA 9th Edition

MLA 9th, released in 2021, moved toward a more flexible "Works Cited" format based on a universal template with nine core elements. The system accommodates evolving source types (social media, podcasts, streaming) without requiring separate rules for each.

In-text citations

MLA uses a parenthetical author–page format: (Atwood 34). There is no comma between the author name and the page number. If the author is named in the sentence, only the page number appears in the parenthetical: "Atwood argues that... (34)."

Works Cited

Each Works Cited entry follows the nine-element template: Author. Title of Source. Title of Container, Other Contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication Date, Location. Elements that do not apply to a given source are simply omitted. This makes MLA 9th more adaptable than its predecessors — though it also means the format requires more judgment from the writer.

Key differences from APA

• MLA titles use title case; APA titles for articles use sentence case.
• MLA includes "Works Cited," not "References."
• MLA does not require a publication year in the parenthetical citation.
• MLA uses page numbers; APA uses year and page.

Chicago 17th Edition

Chicago style has two distinct systems: Notes–Bibliography (used in humanities) and Author–Date (used in sciences and social sciences). Both are documented in the 17th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, published in 2017.

Notes–Bibliography system

Citations appear as footnotes or endnotes, numbered sequentially. The first reference to a source uses a full citation; subsequent references to the same source use a shortened form. A bibliography at the end of the paper lists all sources in full.

Example footnote (first reference to a book):
¹ Margaret Atwood, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (Toronto: Anansi, 1972), 45.

Shortened footnote (subsequent reference):
³ Atwood, Survival, 112.

Author–Date system

Author–Date citations resemble APA, with parenthetical references and a reference list. The parenthetical includes author last name, year and page: (Tully 2008, 88). The reference list is formatted similarly to APA but with some differences in capitalization and punctuation.

Handling digital sources

All three styles now accommodate digital-first sources, but the details differ. APA links via DOI where available; MLA uses a "Web" label and provides URLs or DOIs in the location element; Chicago includes URLs or DOIs at the end of footnote and bibliography entries.

For web pages without a named author, APA uses the organization or website name as the author; MLA omits the author element; Chicago begins the entry with the page title.

Detailed guidance on citing specific source types is available through Purdue OWL, which maintains updated examples for all three styles and is freely accessible to students.