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Understanding Academic Dishonesty: Style Manuals

What are Style Manuals?

Many professional organizations created rules for publication in their own journals. By insisting on standard rules, this made the articles easier to read; made it easier to trace the author's argument, and most of all made it clear who's ideas were being discussed. Over the years, many other organizations adopted these rules. Each style manual includes rules for the formatting of the paper, including items like margins, headers, font choice, and font size. They also included standards for in-line citations and for a list of works cited.

While many guides exist, the common style manuals in use are the MLA (Modern Language Association,) APA (American Psychological Association,) and The Chicago Manual of Style (University of Chicago Press)

Library Guides to Style Manuels

The OCC Library has created guides for each of the most commonly used style manuals.