MLA Style uses title case and is standard for humanities, while APA Style uses sentence case and is standard for social sciences. They represent the two most common academic style guides.
MLA Style capitalizes all principal words while lowercasing articles, prepositions, and coordinating conjunctions unless they open or close a title. It follows the Modern Language Association Handbook.
MLA Style is required for papers in English literature, film studies, and other humanities disciplines at most universities. It is the most common format for undergraduate academic writing.
Open MLA Style converterAPA Style uses sentence case for titles in reference lists and most body contexts, capitalizing only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. It is published by the American Psychological Association.
APA Style is required for papers in psychology, education, sociology, and public health. It is the standard for dissertations in most social science departments.
Open APA Style converterMLA Style is required for papers in English literature, film studies, and other humanities disciplines at most universities. It is the most common format for undergraduate academic writing.
Verbs are always capitalized, including short ones like is and are. The rules closely resemble Chicago Style for most practical purposes.
APA Style is required for papers in psychology, education, sociology, and public health. It is the standard for dissertations in most social science departments.
All words after the first are lowercase unless they are proper nouns or follow a colon. This makes APA titles look significantly different from title-case styles.
Choose MLA Style for English literature, film studies, comparative literature, and other humanities disciplines.
Choose APA Style for psychology, education, sociology, nursing, and other social and behavioral sciences.
Most students will encounter both at some point in their academic careers. The department or journal determines which to use, and mixing them is a common editing error.