MLA 9 vs APA 7: Which Style for Your Canadian Course?
Side-by-side comparison of MLA 9 and APA 7 for Canadian university students.
MLA 9 is the default for English literature, creative writing, and most humanities courses at Canadian universities. APA 7 is the default for psychology, nursing, education, business, and most social sciences. The fastest way to know which to use: search your syllabus for 'MLA', 'APA', or 'Chicago' - the named style is mandatory regardless of discipline norms.
Title page: MLA 9 uses a header block on page 1 (name, instructor, course, date) and skips the title page entirely. APA 7 requires a separate title page with paper title, author, university, course, instructor, and due date.
In-text format: MLA uses (Author Page) with no comma - (Smith 42). APA uses (Author, Year, p. #) - (Smith, 2024, p. 42).
Source list: MLA calls it 'Works Cited' and uses the container model. APA calls it 'References' and uses author-date-title-source format with DOIs.
Headings: MLA uses minimal heading hierarchy. APA defines five formal heading levels with specific formatting.
Quotes: both styles use block-quote format for longer extracts, but MLA's threshold is 4+ lines of prose and APA's is 40+ words.
Quick decision matrix: humanities essay = MLA. Lab report or research paper = APA. Historical analysis = Chicago. Engineering = IEEE. Nursing or medicine = Vancouver.
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