As you are finishing up this term, and getting your bibliographies and citations in order, you might wonder why we cite, and also why we cite in different styles. 

The reason why we might use one style over another is often determined by the field in which we are working. Purdue OWL breaks it down this way:

MLA (Modern language Association) emphasizes Authorship, so authors are very important.

APA (American Psychological Association) emphasizes date. Since publication date is important in the social sciences, APA Style is more likely to be used. 

CMOS (Chicago Manual of Style) emphasizes source origin. History and art history are concerned greatly with source, so footnotes and detailed references lists are preferred. 

There are a lot of other reasons why we might use one over another. APA tries to reduce bias, for example, so first initials, instead of names are included in references. CMOS has a much more robust way of including images, which makes is preferable in art history. We don't use MLA much at RMCAD, because we teach fewer literature classes where it would be used. 

One of the big differences between APA and CMOS is the way citations are built within the paper itself. They both use final bibliographies or references lists, but within the paper, APA uses in-text citations while CMOS uses footnotes. from the description above, you can probably figure out why. APA is concernced about dates so a citation to Purdue OWL (2018) is sufficient as it points to the item in the reference list. CMOS wants a more complete source, which the footnote will provide. 

I hope this helps clear things up. 

As always, make an appointment with the SLC if you need help finalizing those citations!