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Citation Style Guides

ASA

General Guidelines

Fonts

  • The preferred fonts of ASA are Ariel or Times New Roman 12 pt.

Margins

  • Margins should be 1 inch.

Spacing

  • The entire document, with the exception of block quotes, should be double spaced.

Formatting

Structure your paper using the following sections:

  • Title Page: Includes full title followed by an asterisk, name(s) and institution(s) of author(s), a complete word count, running head, and a title footnote with name and address of author(s), acknowledgments, credits, and grant information (if any).
  • Abstract: Begin on a new page headed by the title. Brief, jargon-free paragraph (less than 200 words) summarizing the work, followed by three to five key words.
  • Body: Begin on a new page headed by the title. Use headings and subheadings after the introduction.
  • Notes: Footnotes and endnotes should be indicated in the text with superscripted numbers. The notes can be typed at the bottom of the page (footnotes) or in a separate section labeled Notes or Endnotes. Do only one or the other; not both. Begin each note with its superscript number.
  • References: List alphabetically in a new section labeled References.
  • Appendixes: If more than one, label Appendix A, Appendix B, etc. Appendices should be labeled with a title.

Articles
Article, Print Journal, One Author

Garcia, Alma M. 1998. "An Intellectual Odyssey: Chicana/Chicano Studies Moving into the Twenty-first Century." Journal of American Ethnic History 18:109.

Article, Print Journal, Two or More Authors

Exum, William H., Robert J. Menges, Bari Watkins, and Patricia Berglund. 1984. "Making it at the top: Women and minority faculty in the academic labor market." American Behavioral Scientist 27:301-324.

Article, Online Library Database

Graham, Lorie M. 1998. "The Past Never Vanishes: A Contextual Critique of the Existing Indian Family Doctrine." American Indian Law Review 23:1. Retrieved May 25, 1999 Available: LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe, Law Reviews.

NOTE: When formatting your works cited page, make sure your citations are double spaced with a hanging indent. 

Books
Book, Single Author

De Anda, Roberto M. 1995. Chicanas and Chicanos in Contemporary Society. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Book, Two Authors

Herrera-Sobek, Mari'a and Helena Mari'a Viramontes. 1995. Chicana (W)rites : On Word and Film. Berkeley, CA: Third Woman Press.

Book, Three or More Authors

Edelman, Peter, Harry J. Holzer, and Paul Offner. 2006. Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.

A Work (e.g., essay, short story) in an anthology or compilation

Russell, Katheryn K., Heather L. Pfeifer, and Judith L. Jones, comp. 2000. Race and Crime: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Book, with Translator or other Contributors

Lattimore, Richmond, trans. 1951. The Iliad of Homer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

E-book

Wimberly, George L. 2015. LGBTQ Issues in Education: Advancing a Research Agenda. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association. Https://ebooks.aera.net/catalog/book/lgbtq-issues-education-advancing-research-agenda.

NOTE: When formatting your works cited page, make sure your citations are double spaced with a hanging indent. 

Web Sources
Web Based Journal

Smith, Herman W. and Takako Nomi. 2000. "Is Amae the Key to Understanding Japanese Culture?." Electronic Journal of Sociology 5:1. Retrieved May 5, 2000 (http://www.sociology.org/content/vol005.001/smith-nomi.html).

Information Posted on a Website

American Sociological Association. 2000. "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Workshop." Washington, DC: American Sociological Association, Retrieved May 5, 2000 (http://www.asanet.org/members/socwkshp.html)

NOTE: When formatting your works cited page, make sure your citations are double spaced with a hanging indent. 

Government Documents

Since the nature of public documents is so varied, the form of entry for documents cannot be standardized. The essential rule is to provide sufficient information so that the reader can locate the reference easily. For example:

United States. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. 1999. Rehab a home with HUD's 203(k) : HUD and FHA are on your side. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.

Dissertations and Theses

King, Andrew J. 1976. "Law and Land Use in Chicago: A Pre-History of Modern Zoning." PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

NOTE: When formatting your works cited page, make sure your citations are double spaced with a hanging indent. 

In-Text Citations

In-text citations include the author(s)'s name and year of publication. When using quotations, include page numbers. Use the same in-text citation when you cite an author more than once in a paper.

 

If author's name is in the text, follow it with the publication year in parentheses:

  • When Chu (1977) studied...

 

If the author's name is not in the text, enclose the last name and year in parentheses:

  • ...when the study was completed (Jones 1994).

 

If the page number is to be included, it follows the year of publication after a colon:

  • Chavez (1966:16)...

 

For three authors, give all last names in the first citation in the text; afterwards use the first name and et al.; for more than three names, use the first author's last name plus et al.:

  • (Smith, Garcia and Lee 1954); (Snow et al. 1989)

 

Quotations in the text must begin and end with quotation marks; the citation follows the end quote mark and precedes the period:

  • "In 1999, however, the data were reported by more specific job types which showed that technologically oriented jobs paid better" (Hildenbrand 1999:47).