Whether you are choosing a style or using a prescribed one, it is always important to be able to find the guidelines in question and to apply these consistently. How does this work in practice?
If you are doing this by hand, you need to type all of the references in the text, footnotes and endnotes, as well as the entire references in the bibliography, carefully applying all of the citation rules. This is a major chore, and you can easily overlook small errors.
We recommend automating this job by using a citation tool, or citation software. Zotero is a very useful tool. This will save you a lot of time.
You can use Zotero to construct a personal database of all the sources you have used or will be using for your paper or thesis. The tool allows you to fill the database manually, either by copy and pasting or typing. However, it is much nicer to be able to immediately store any (potentially) useful material you come across in your literature search in your databank, without having to type or paste anything, by using CatalogusPlus, PsycINFO or Scopus, for example.
When writing your paper or thesis, you can add a reference to, for instance, a book or article from your personal database.
And finally, another benefit is that the tool will consistently format citations correctly in the style you have selected, right down to the footnotes, endnotes and bibliography.
However, even when using a citation tool, it remains imperative to check your work carefully and to make any corrections required.