APA is a format indicating reference sources, which is mainly used for academic standards such as social sciences, and many domestic journals also adopt APA format.
MLA is a paper guidance format formulated by American Modern Language Association, which is mostly used in humanities. CMS format originated from the manual format published by University of Chicago Press 1906, which is mainly used in humanities. It uses footnotes, endnotes and bibliography to indicate the source of literature.
Harvard document format is the reference standard of Harvard university papers. Its full name is Harvard Annotation System, which originated in the United States, but is widely used in Britain and Australia, especially in the fields of physics and natural science.
National standards for reference:
First of all, preface.
1. This standard specifies the description items, description sequence, symbols used, description methods of each description item and annotation methods of references in various publications.
2. This standard is designed for authors and editors to refer to documents after writing articles, rather than the document description rules used by librarians, document catalogue editors and index editors.
Second, nouns and terms.
1. References: Relevant books and materials cited for writing or editing works.
2. Identification title: the unique name of a serial publication recognized by the International Serial Publication Data System (ISDS).
Three. Describe the project and describe the format.
This standard specifies the description formats of monographs, serial publications, patent documents, documents separated from monographs and documents separated from serial publications respectively.
Among the five description formats, the description items marked "for selection" are all the choices of references, and the rest are the main items of references. Items can be selected according to the provisions of Chapter VI of this standard or according to the characteristics of the literature itself.