AP Style is a writing style for writing news stories, particularly newspaper or news magazine type stories.

Both styles are frequently used in the academic world depending upon one’s purpose. APA style is a complete guide to formatting and writing a research paper including where the title goes, where footnotes go, and so on. As it is mostly used for scientific writing, there is much more focus on citing sources and presenting data. AP Style is more about proper use of phrasing and terminology as well as punctuation. While a newspaper reporter needs to have reliable sources, they typically do not present them within the framework of the article (with the exception of quotes).

I hope that helps.

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