Citation styles at a glance
Reviewed by Benjamin Lohrer, editor at corrected.eu · Updated: 11 September 2026
All citation styles at a glance, with examples
When you write an academic paper, you have to decide on a citation style, and in almost every case your department tells you which one. Which style makes sense depends on your subject, your university and sometimes the individual examiner. Here is an overview of the most important citation styles used at universities in Germany and internationally, each with a short explanation and a link to the detailed guide where we have one.
Which citation style when?
The most important rule first: follow the requirements of your department. If there are none (rare), orient yourself on the usual style of your subject. Law follows its own rules.
- Psychology, education, social sciences, business: mostly APA 7.
- Humanities and cultural studies, law, history: often the German footnote style or Chicago.
- Natural sciences, medicine, pharmacy: frequently Vancouver or an in-house style.
- Technology and engineering: often IEEE.
- English studies and literary studies: frequently MLA.
- Business and political science: sometimes Harvard, sometimes APA.
What you should not do: mix two styles in one paper. It is noticed immediately and costs marks. If your department asks for Harvard, that applies to every single source, including web sources, AI sources and social media. If you are unsure, ask your supervisor briefly before you start writing, not two days before the deadline.
If you are studying in Germany, note that many German chairs publish their own style guide as a PDF. It overrides any general rule, so always read it first.
The most important citation styles in brief
Author-date versus footnote: the two basic systems
Behind all the names there are really only two basic systems. One is the author-date system (Harvard, APA, Chicago author-date): the text contains a short reference in brackets, and the full bibliography comes at the end of the paper. The other is the footnote system (German citation style, Chicago notes-bibliography): the text contains a superscript number, and the footnote below contains the source.
Author-date (Harvard): Learning is most effective when learners are emotionally involved (Schmidt 2022, p. 47).
Footnote (German): Learning is most effective when learners are emotionally involved.¹
¹ Vgl. Schmidt 2022, S. 47.
Both systems are equally valid. The author-date system has the advantage that the source is visible as you read. Footnotes interrupt the text less and allow longer comments that do not fit into the main text. Which system you use is set by your department, not by you.
What all citation styles have in common
Whichever style you use, three things always apply:
- Every idea that is not your own must be identifiable. Paraphrases need a source as well, not only direct quotations.
- Consistency is more important than perfection. Better one small quirk applied the same way throughout than ten different ways of writing DOIs.
- The bibliography must contain an entry for every in-text reference, and vice versa. Nothing may be left over or missing.
Anyone who works cleanly here saves a lot of stress at the plagiarism check later. Tools such as our plagiarism checker mainly find passages where quotations were forgotten or paraphrased sloppily, that is, where the citation rules were not kept up.
Citation generators and reference managers
Whether you use Word, Citavi, Zotero or an online generator: citation generators save time but reliably make mistakes with German edited volumes, non-English journals and book chapters. A spot check per type of source is mandatory. Our citation generator is a good place to start, and the guide to citing correctly explains the basics.
If you are unsure about your citations
In our editing work we see bachelor's and master's theses every day in which the language is fine but the sources are formally inconsistent. That costs avoidable marks. Professional proofreading and editing with us always includes a plausibility check of your citations: we check whether every in-text source appears in the bibliography, whether special cases (edited volumes, web sources, AI sources) are handled cleanly and whether you stick to one style consistently. Combined with the plagiarism check, you get double protection before submission. Details are in our citation check.
Practical guides for individual types of work: citing in a bachelor's thesis, citing in a master's thesis, citing in a dissertation and citing in an essay.
Frequently asked questions about citation styles
Which citation style is the easiest?
Subjectively, Harvard is the easiest for many people because it puts only author and year into the text: no switching to footnotes and no page notation per reference. APA 7 is almost as simple and the most widespread internationally. If you are genuinely free to choose and you write in the social sciences, both are a good choice. Humanities students can rarely avoid footnotes.
May I mix two citation styles in one paper?
No. One paper, one style: that is the most important rule. Mixed forms are noticed immediately and counted as a formal defect in the assessment. If you take over a table from another source that internally uses a different citation style, that is fine, because it is part of the source. But your own references in the text must be uniform.
How do I cite if my university gives no requirements?
Look at two or three bachelor's theses from your subject (for example in the university library or the catalogue) and adopt the style most of them use. If in doubt, ask the chair. The worst case is having to reformat a thesis after three months because the choice was wrong.
Is a citation generator such as Scribbr or citationmachine enough?
For an essay often yes, for a bachelor's or master's thesis rather not. Generators make mistakes above all with German edited volumes, special characters in publisher names and online sources. A spot check per type of source is always necessary.
How do I cite ChatGPT or other AI?
APA 7 has an official recommendation: AI answers are treated as "personal communication" and are given with provider, model, date and URL. Other styles (Harvard, Chicago) are following. Important: an AI source never replaces an academic source. It can be a prompt, but the evidence must come from real literature. More in the APA 7 guide.