American Sociological Association (ASA) Style, 4th edition

Authors and editors working in the sociological discipline wanted to distinguish their style from that of
both the Chicago Manual style and the American Psychological Association style, and in 1992, the first
draft of the American Sociological Association Style Guide was approved. Though the ASA Style Guide
still primarily draws from the Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.), changes still exist between the two.
Please refer to the ASA manual (4th ed.) for the most recent information on citing sources.

The current 4th edition of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Style Guide was published in
2010. Be sure to always use the most current edition.

Manuscript Formatting

Title Page
Include a separate title page with the full title of the manuscript, authors' names and institutions (listed
vertically if there are more than one), and a complete word count of the document (which includes
footnotes and references).

A title footnote should include the address of the corresponding author (that is – the author who receives
correspondence regarding the article), grants/funding, and additional credits and acknowledgements (for
papers for sociology classes, this is often not needed).

Abstract
If an abstract is needed, it should be on a separate page, immediately after the title page, with the title of
the document as the heading.
Do not include author.
The abstract should be one paragraph, 150-200 words in length.

Key Words
On the same page as the abstract, include a list of three to five words that help to identify main themes in
the manuscript.

Page Numbering
Pages should be numbered consecutively (1, 2, 3...) starting with the title page and including the
references page(s), or as specified by journal or course instructor.

Text Formatting
All text within the document should be in a 12-point font and double spaced (including footnotes), or as
specified by journal or course instructor.

Margins
Margins should be at least 1 1/4 inches on all sides, or as specified by journal or course instructor.

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First Page
The first page of the text should start with the title and be on a new page of text (after the title page and
abstract).

Subheadings
Use subheadings to organize the body of the manuscript. Usually, three different levels of headings
should be sufficient.

THIS IS A FIRST-LEVEL HEADING

 Place first-level heads in all caps and left-justify.
 Don't use a bold font.
 Don't begin the manuscript with a heading, such as Introduction.

This is a Second-Level Heading

 Italicize and left-justify second-level heads.
 Don't use a bold font.
 Use title case.
This is a third-level heading.
 Italicize and left-justify third-level heads.
 These should be indented at the
beginning of the paragraph…
 …followed by a period
 Don't use a bold font.
 Capitalize only the first word of the
head.
References Page Formatting
Basic Guidelines (Based on ASA Style Guide, 4th Edition, 2010)
 Heading for the reference list: References
 Double-space between each line and between each reference
 Hanging indent of five spaces
 References follow the text in a section headed REFERENCES (use first-level head format identified
earlier).
 Capitalize only the first word in hyphenated compound words, unless the second word is a proper
noun or adjective (for example, don’t capitalize it in The Issue of Self-preservation for Women, but do
capitalize it in Terrorist Rhetoric: The Anti-American Sentiment).
 All references should be in alphabetical order by first authors’ last names.
 Invert the author’s name (type the last name first). If there are two or more authors, invert only the
first author’s name.
 Include first names for all authors, rather than initials, but use first-name and middle-name initials if
an author used initials in the original publication.
 List all authors. It is not acceptable to use et al. in the References section unless the work was
authored by a committee.
 Arrange multiple items by the same author in order by year of publication, earliest year first.
 Distinguish works by the same author in the same year by adding letters (e.g. 1993a, 1993b, 1993c).
For repeated authors or editors, include the full name in all references (note: this is a change from
the third edition of the ASA Style Guide). Arrange references for the same author in chronological
order, beginning with the oldest.

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Book with One Author
Author's full name, inverted so that last name appears first. Year. Book Title in Title Caps and
Italicized. Publishing City: Publisher.
Note that the two-letter state abbreviation should be given only if needed to identify the city. For a
publisher located in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Boston, for example, it would not be
necessary to include the state abbreviation.

Note that the word "volume" is capitalized and abbreviated but not italicized.

Sample:
Bergesen, Albert. 2006. The Depth of Shallow Culture: The High Art of Shoes, Movies, Novels, Monsters,

and Toys. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

Book with Two or More Authors

Same as with one author, but do not invert authors’ names after the first author. Separate authors’
names with a comma (unless there are only two authors), and include the word and before the
final author.

Note that the word “edition” is abbreviated, and not italicized or capitalized.

Sample:
Corbin, Juliet and Anselm Strauss. Basics of Qualitative Research. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Scholarly Journal Article

Author's full name, inverted so that last name appears first. Year. “Article Title in Title Caps and
in Quotes.” Journal Title in Title Caps and Italicized. Volume Number (Issue Number):page
numbers of article.

Note that there is no space after the colon preceding page numbers.
For multiple authors, invert last name of first author only.
Separate with commas, unless there are only two authors.
Use and between last two authors.

Print Journal Article with One Author

Sample:
Garcia, Alma M. 1998. "An Intellectual Odyssey: Chicana/Chicano Studies Moving Into the Twenty-first

Century." Journal of American Ethnic History 18(1):109.

Print Journal Article with Multiple Authors

Sample:
Allen, Jen, Sonia Chavez, Sara DeSimone, Debbie Howard, Keadron Johnson, Lucinda LaPierre, Darrel

Montero, and Jerry Sanders. 2006. “Americans’ Attitudes toward Euthanasia, 1936-2002.”

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 Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 33(2):5-23.

Journal Article from a Commercial Database (Article has a DOI)

If the article has a DOI (Digital Object Identifer), add it at the end of the citation:
doi:10.0011/0000000X0001100101.

Sweeten, Gary, Shawn D. Bushway, and Raymond Paternoster. 2009. “Does Dropping Out of

School Mean Dropping Into Delinquency?” Criminology 47(1):47-91. doi:10.1111/j.1745-

9125.2009.00139.x.

MAGAZINE AND NEWSPAPER ARTICLES

The basic form for a magazine or newspaper entry includes…
1. Author’s last name, followed by a comma and the first name and middle initial, ending with a period.
2. Year of publication followed by a period.
3. Title of article in “quotations,” ending with a period inside the closing quotation mark.
4. Name of newspaper/magazine in italics, followed by a comma.
5. Month and date of publication followed by a comma.
6. Page number of article within the publication, designated by “pp.” and ending with a period.
7. For articles found online, add the date of retrieval and the URL of the site at which the article was
located in parentheses, followed by a period: Retrieved [date of retrieval] (www.websitename.com).
8. For online periodicals (magazines, and newspapers), use the same format as for printed periodicals,
unless they are available ONLY in online form. In that case, simply add the date viewed and the URL for
retrieving the article.

Print Magazine Article (Based on ASA Style Guide, 4th Edition, 2010, pg. 102)

Sample:
Goodson, Rowena. 2004. “How Parents Can Help Their Children Prepare for Early Reading in

Kindergarten and Beyond.” Atlantic Monthly, May 2004, pp. 18-26.

Online Magazine Article (Based on ASA Style Guide, 4th Edition, 2010, pg. 107)

For online periodicals (magazines and newspapers), use the same format as for printed periodicals, unless
they are available ONLY in online form. In that case, simply add the date viewed and the URL for
retrieving the article.

Sample:
Kelley, Raina. 2007. “Dollars for Scholars: A Bold Experiment Pays Parents to do the Right Thing.”

Newsweek, September 3, pp. 39, 42. (Retrieved from Masterfile Premier on April 4, 2011.)

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Web Pages

Sample:
Center for Immigration Studies. N.d. “About the Center for Immigration studies.” Retrieved October 25,

2010 (http://www.cis.org/aboutcis.html).

Online Documents

Sample:
Leiken, Robert S. 2000. “The Melting Border.” Washington, DC: Center for Equal Opportunity.

Retrieved November 14, 2010 (http://www.ceousa.org/pdfs/MELTBORDER.pdf).

Government Documents

Sample:
General Accounting Office. 1997. Language Education Costs in U.S. Schools. GRD-97-62. Washington,

DC: General Accounting Office.

In-Text (Citation) References [adapted from the ASA Style Guide, 4th ed. (2010), section 4.3.1]

General Formatting
Cite the last name of the author and year of publication.
Include page numbers within the citation when directly quoting the authors’ words or paraphrasing a
passage.

If the author's name is used in the text, put the date in parentheses.
When Duncan (1959) studied...

If the author's name is not in the text, enclose last name and year in parentheses.
When these relationships were studied (Gouldner 1963)...

If the author or work in the text is named and if no specific page number is to be cited, put the date
in parenthesis.
In explaining Foucault's theory, Johnson (2004) notes that...

If the author or work in the text is named and a specific page number is to be cited, put the date
and page number in parenthesis, separated by a colon.
In explaining Foucault's theory, Johnson (2004:161) notes that...

Cite a range of page numbers as follows:

In explaining Foucault's theory, Johnson (2004:161-67) notes that...

If an author or work is not included in the text, cite within parenthesis with the year and page
number as shown:
Communal prayer's affect on collective identity is strongest in adolescents (Davidson 2009:34)...

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Using Quotes

For shorter quotes:

Short quotations in the body of the manuscript should be surrounded by quotation marks.
Quotations in text must begin and end with quotation marks; the citation follows the end quote mark and
precedes the period.

Two examples:
“In 1998, however, the data were reported by more specific job type which showed that technologically
oriented jobs paid better” (Hildenbrand 1999:47).

Hildenbrand reported that “in 1998, however, the data were reported by more specific job type which
showed that technologically oriented jobs paid better” (1999:47).

Use p. (lower case p period) for the page number when the author and year do not accompany it in
the citation.

For longer quotes:

Block quotations (direct quotations of more than 40 words) should be offset from the main text and may
be single-spaced. Do not include quotation marks with block quotes.
Pagination follows the year of publication after a colon (note that in the in-text citation, there is no space
between the colon and the page number).

Steps:
1. Set longer quotations off in a separate paragraph (or block quotation) that is indented from the text.
2. The text may be single-spaced.
3. Do not use quotations marks.
4. The citation follows the period in a block quotation.

Example:
The mother of Invention is compared to Inspiration’s father as:

If necessity is the mother of Invention, then perhaps desperation might be Inspiration’s father.
How many useful innovations that seem to others like bright and shiny new ideas are created as
the result of a last-ditch attempt to fix a part of the world that had just been noticed to be “out of
order?” Perhaps that is not a very romantic view of change, but it often fits experience. And if a
new idea works, by bringing about needed improvements, it looks better and better. (Besemer et
al. 1993:69)

For paraphrasing sources:

When using an author’s ideas or re-phrasing his or her words, even though not quoting directly, document
the source. Use the same format as shown above for the citations in text, but omit the page number.

…whenever it occurred as reported in another study by Pain (2004).

…whenever it occurred (Pain 2004).

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Citing Sources in Text
Refer to the above examples for citing one author as well as for the various ways for parenthetical
citing of sources.

Name of Unknown Author

For institutional authorship, supply the minimum identification needed from the beginning of the
complete reference to find it in the reference list.

(U.S. Bureau of the Census 1963:117)

Joint (two) authors: give both names:

(Moon and Williams 1993:343)

(Martin and Bailey 1988)

Three authors: give all three last names in the first citation in the text, in subsequent citations, use
the first listed name and “et al.”

(Scott, Treas, and Richards 2004) - first citation

(Scott et al. 2004) - subsequent citations

First citation: (Carr, Smith, and Jones 1962)...

Later citations: (Carr et al. 1962) ASA 29

Four or more authors (e.g., Kashani, Daniel, Dandoy, and Holcomb): use “et al.” in all citations
including the first one:

(Kashani et al. 1999) - first & subsequent citations

(Nilson et al. 1962) - first & subsequent citations

For institutional or government authorship, supply minimum identification from the beginning of
the complete reference:

(U.S. Bureau of the Census 1998:482)

Multiple Citations
Separate a series of references with a semicolon.
List them in a single logical order throughout the paper, e.g., chronologically or alphabetically, but be
consistent throughout the manuscript.

Two examples:
Chronological order: (Moon and Williams 1993; Kashani 1999; Scott et al 2004)
or
Alphabetical order: (Kashani 1999; Moon and Williams 1993; Scott et al. 2004)
Alphabetical order: (Burgess 1982; Marwell et al. 1971)
or

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Chronological order: (Marwell et al. 1971; Burgess 1982)

Citing a Reprinted Work

If the work being cited was published earlier and then re-released, list the earliest date first, in brackets,
then the most recent date.
(Finke and Stark [1992] 2005)

Citing Unpublished Work

For unpublished papers, cite the date, or, if scheduled to be published soon, use forthcoming in lieu of a
date. If no date is given, use N.d.

Sample:
Jones (N.d.) discusses the relationship between students and parents.

Citing Archival Sources

For archival sources, use abbreviations when possible.

Meany Archives, LRF, Box 6, March 18, 1970).

Reference to specific chapters, tables, appendices, etc.:

(Clawson 1998, chap.2)
(Neuman 1994, table 3.3)