The Purpose and Historical Academic Use of Formatting Styles Essay Example for Free

The Purpose and Historical Academic Use of Formatting Styles Essay It is critical to acknowledge sources to further prove an honest academic work. There are three major citation styles namely Chicago or Turabian, MLA, and APA. The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, and commonly known as Turabian style is a style of formatting developed specifically for papers written in class and not for publication or for writing and formatting research paper. It enables the use of footnotes and or end note in combination with parenthetical referencing. Turabian style is named after the book’s original author, Kate Turabian with her study guide, â€Å"A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations†, and developed it for the University of Chicago. American Psychological Association or APA styling is necessary to prevent plagiarism and to maintain consistency among the different leagues of writing communities. APA is used in social sciences, education, engineering, and business adapted to present written material in the field. The editorial style is more like a formatting tool to ensure clear and consistent presentation of written material. The origin of APA dates back to February of 1929. The APA style was published in â€Å"Psychological Bulletin† as a result of 1928 meeting of representatives from anthropological and psychological journals to discuss the form of journal manuscripts and to write instructions for their preparation. The use of Modern Language Association of America (MLA) can protect writers from accusations of plagiarism or accidental and purposeful uncredited use of source material by other writers. It is addressed primarily to academic scholars, professors, graduate students, and other advanced-level writers of scholarly books and articles in humanities disciplines such as English and other modern languages and literatures. MLA style found its roots back in 1883 at The Johns Hopkins University, as a discussion and advocacy group for the study of literature and modern languages. MLA at present is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature.