But I was using a legitimate citation style

A: I do not care how you acknowledge the work of others, as long as that reference system is clear and consistent. It may be MLA, APA, Chicago, or putting everything but the kitchen sink into the text. Some faculty members, however, prefer a specific style. When I was a faculty member at Peabody College in Nashville, the special education department required all graduate exams conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Masters students generally are not going to become researchers, so it was an arbitrary requirement. Other citation systems would have fulfilled the basic requirement of avoiding plagiarism.

However, the arbitrary requirement was not an onerous one. Most citations fit into one or two categories (books and articles), and learning them requires copying the format. I consider this type of requirement to be a "house rule." Violating it is not plagiarism, though it may end up in a lower grade than following it would.

For my courses, I do not care whether you use APA, Chicago, or Martian style. I just want to know what your sources were.