How Many Citation Styles Are There?
There is no single official count — new field-specific variants are published every year — but a small group of styles covers the overwhelming majority of academic work. Bibloq supports 21 of the most-used styles. Below is the complete list organized by category, with the discipline that typically requires each one.
Author-Date Styles
| Style | Full name / governing body | Primary discipline |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | American Psychological Association, 7th ed. | Psychology, education, nursing, social work |
| Harvard | No single governing body; institutional variants | Business, UK/AU/NZ universities, general |
| Chicago Author-Date | Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. | Social sciences and sciences using Chicago |
| ASA | American Sociological Association | Sociology |
| APSA | American Political Science Association | Political science |
Author-Page Styles
| Style | Full name / governing body | Primary discipline |
|---|---|---|
| MLA 9 | Modern Language Association, 9th ed. | English literature, humanities, languages |
Numeric Styles
| Style | Full name / governing body | Primary discipline |
|---|---|---|
| Vancouver | International Committee of Medical Journal Editors | Medicine, life sciences |
| IEEE | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers | Engineering, computer science |
| AMA | American Medical Association | Medicine (journal publishing) |
| ACS | American Chemical Society | Chemistry |
| CSE (citation-sequence) | Council of Science Editors | Life and physical sciences |
Footnote / Note-Based Styles
| Style | Full name / governing body | Primary discipline |
|---|---|---|
| Chicago Notes-Bibliography | Chicago Manual of Style, 17th ed. | History, art history, humanities |
| Turabian | Student adaptation of Chicago | Undergraduate/graduate research papers |
| OSCOLA | Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities | Law (UK and Commonwealth) |
| Bluebook | The Bluebook, Harvard Law Review Association | Law (US) |
All 21 Styles, One Tool
Bibloq generates correctly formatted citations in any style on this list — no need to memorize the rules.
Try Bibloq Free →Other Notable Styles
| Style | Notes |
|---|---|
| CSE name-year | Author-date variant of CSE, used alongside the numeric variants in sciences |
| AAA | American Anthropological Association — author-date, used in anthropology |
| NLM | National Library of Medicine — numeric, used in biomedical publishing |
| MHRA | Modern Humanities Research Association — footnote style for UK humanities |
Which Style Should You Use?
If your assignment brief or syllabus names a style, use exactly that one — including the edition number, since rules change between editions (APA 6 and APA 7 differ in several ways, as do MLA 8 and MLA 9). If no style is specified, the safest defaults are APA 7 for social sciences and health fields, MLA 9 for humanities and English, and Chicago for history. See our full guide on choosing the right citation style for your discipline for a complete decision process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Harvard style the same as APA?
No — they're both author-date systems and look similar, but Harvard isn't a single official style; it's a family of institutional conventions with no single governing manual, while APA is a formally published, version-controlled standard. See our dedicated comparison in APA vs MLA vs Chicago.
Do I need to memorize every style on this list?
No. Most students only ever need one or two styles across their entire degree. Use this list as a reference to recognize what's being asked for, then use a generator like Bibloq to apply it correctly.
What's the newest citation style edition?
APA 7 (2020) and MLA 9 (2021) are the current editions as of this writing; Chicago's 17th edition (2017) remains current.
Stop Memorizing Citation Rules
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