How To Choose Masters Thesis Format: APA vs MLA

Writing a thesis for your masters is not as easy as it may sound. It requires a lot of dedication and hard work. You will have to be very careful and select the right format that is accepted by your university. Here are a few tips that will help you choose the right format. There are two major formats and these are APA and MLA. The right format will help you come up with a paper that is easy to understand and the teacher does not have difficulty finding the information.

Why the format is important

The format is important because it will create the impression to your professors. The teacher will always be inclined to award more marks to a student who has followed the right format. Since it will help in finding the information quickly, the teacher will be able to evaluate your work faster and hence be impressed by your efforts.

What subject you are working on also plays a big role in choosing the format.When working on the format you will have to know the guidelines. You can easily learn the rules by reading a manual or following a good example or sample paper.

Things to keep in mind when selecting the format:

• The American Psychological Association also known as the APA is useful when working on scientific topics and lap reports especially those that are related to psychology. You can also use this format to work on social science subjects.


• When you are using the APA format, you can use the past tense and also citations. You can directly quote from some work done by other researcher.


• When you are going to follow the MLA or the Modern Language Association format for your thesis you will have to use the present tense more often.


• The MLA style is better suited for writing the literary research papers.


• Unlike the APA style, the MLA format is more inclined towards the usage of books and other sorts of media for citations.

Select the one best suited to your work

The kind of style you will use will depend on the subject you are working on. If you are going to work on a subject related to humanities then the MLA format is probably the best option. For students pursuing a degree in science subject or working on scientific project for their masters then the APA style is the one to opt for.