APA format is a writing style that is used for academic documents and articles written for scholarly publications. Using APA format allows for the focus of the reader to be on the ideas being presented in a paper and the work to be scanned quickly for key points, findings, and sources. APA format encourages authors to fully disclose pertinent information and cite the source from which it comes, and reduces the distractions of dealing with inconsistencies or omissions of punctuation, proper capitalization, in-text citations, references, and presentation of data (statistics, graphs, charts. etc.).
MLA format is a writing style that is used mostly by disciplines classified as language arts, cultural arts, and other humanities. Using MLA format allows writers to gain credibility for their work by displaying accountability to their source materials. MLA format provides a system for referencing sources utilizing parenthetical citation and “Works Cited” pages.