Because citation styles are designed to meet the needs and purposes of particular disciplines, they have varying conventions for documenting sources (and formatting research papers).
The American Psychological Association (APA) Style is often used for writing in the social and behavioral styles. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association provides guidelines for using punctuation and abbreviations, constructing tables, using headings, presenting statistics and citing references.
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides helpful information about APA Style formatting, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page.
The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is often used for writing in history, and is also used or has been adapted for some writing in the humanities and sciences. The Chicago Manual of Style provides guidelines for style and usage, documentation of sources, and the preparation of manuscripts for publication.
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides an overview of the Chicago Manual of Style.
The Council of Science Editors (CSE) style is used in the natural sciences. Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers provides guidelines and information about publishing, style and scientific conventions, and elements of publications (including references).
The University of North Carolina provides helpful information about citing sources using the CSE style citation systems (Name-Year system and Citation-Sequence system).
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Style is used in engineering and computer science.
IEEE offers an Author Digital Toolbox with the IEEE Style Manual, and the University of Toronto's Engineering Communication Centre provides explanations and examples for IEEE style in-text citations and lists of references.
The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides explanation and exercises that can help writers with common issues of punctuation, grammar and mechanics: