ASA Style Guide

Information for these guidelines is compiled from the American Sociological Association Style Guide, Second Edition. ASA is a non-profit membership association, serving over 13,000 sociologists in various fields of sociology. ASA developed the ASA Style Guide to simplify the most common styles and formats in writing journals and manuscripts. If these guidelines do not meet your needs, please refer to the ASA Style Guide, 2nd Ed. or come to Tutorial & Instructional Programs (TIP) Lab at SAC 1221 for further assistance.

Paper Format

• Margins: one inch on all sides
• Double-spaced (including footnotes)
• 12 points type font size
• Pages are numbered, from the title page to the reference page
• Must have a title page, which will have the full title of your paper, your name, your institution, a running head, and an approximate word count of your paper.
• Should include an abstract page (on the second page, right after the title page). Include the title of your paper. It should be approximately 150-200 words, in one paragraph.
• The text of your paper will start on the third page, starting with the title of your paper
• Use parenthetical citations instead of footnotes/endnotes. However, use footnotes/endnotes if your professor requires them. Parenthetical citations are inserted at the end of the information. Footnotes/endnotes are inserted in a separate section of your paper.
• References should appear on the very last page of your paper, titled “References” Your references will be in an alphabetical order, using hanging indents.
• The title of your paper should be centered two lines below the date. Do not underline or quote the title

Always check with your instructor to see if he or she has any different requirements or specifications for your paper.

In-text Citations

Citations for Most Written Sources. ASA Style Citation require that credit must be given for all information whether it be a direct quote or a paraphrase. Generally you are required to give the following information: author’s last name, year of publication, and page number in parenthesis directly after the quote or paraphrase.

If you include the author’s name as part of the sentence, just give the year in parenthesis directly after the author’s name, and put p. for the page number in parenthesis after the quote.

If there is no publication date, cite the author’s last name followed by n.d. (meaning “no date”).

Multiple Authors

When a source has two authors, you should give both last names. Within the parenthetical citation, use and between the authors’ names. If you use their names in the sentence, just write and between their names. Both methods must be followed by the year of publication, and at the end of the sentence, put in the page number.

When a source has three authors, cite all the authors’ last names and the year the first time the reference occurs. For later references to the same source cite only the first author’s last name followed by et al. However, if a source has four or more authors, use et al. both in the first citation and in all subsequent citations.

If you are using several different works to illustrate one point, you may find it necessary to cite two or more works written by different authors with different dates. In that situation, organize the information alphabetically by the authors’ last names, and separate each block of information with a semicolon. Put all the names inside one set of parenthesis. Do not use an ampersand (&).

To cite a group author (e.g. association, organization, or government agency) you should spell out the full name.

Quotes of 40 Words or More

Block quotations are presented in smaller type (10pt) and are set off in a separate, indented paragraph. Block quotations should not be enclosed in quotation marks. The author, date, and/or page number, in parenthesis, follows the last period in the block quotation. The P for page should be used and capitalized if it stands alone, without author and year.

Reference Format

For a paper done in ASA documentation style, the reference list will appear in a separate section and will be titled “References.” Here on your References page, you acknowledge your sources by listing them in an alphabetical order by author’s last name. Although the References page appears at the end of your paper, you will draft this section in advance, so that you will have the appropriate information to cite your paper properly.

The general formatting rules for your References page are as follows:

• List your sources in an alphabetical order according to the author’s last name.
• If no author is listed, begin with the main word of the article or book title (ignoring A, An, or The).
• Italicize the title of books, magazines, or journals.
• Quote the title of articles, or any other work that appears within a publication.
• Format each entry with a hanging indent. A hanging indent means that the first line of the entry remains flush with the left margin, and the subsequent lines are indented 5 spaces to the right. Your word processing software will provide this feature easily.
• The order of each entry is as follows: — Author. Year of Publication. “Article.” Title of Book. City Published: Publisher.

References format for Articles

General format for citing articles and other publications from periodicals is as follows:

• Author. Year published. “Article.” Title of Publication Issue/Volume:pages.

Journal Article	Conger, Randy D. 1998. “The Effects of Positive Feedback.” American Journal of Sociology 79:252-259.
Magazine Article	Solomon, Andrew. 1994. “Defiantly Deaf.” Newsweek, August 28, pp. 38-40.
Newspaper Article	Gauli, Melissa and Crystal Milten. 1992. “A New Look on Legal Unions.” Washington Post, January 13, pp. A2.

References format for Books

If a book have one author, list by last name, first name and middle initial (if any). If a book has two, three, or more authors, the subsequent authors will be listed by first name, middle initial, and last name, each name separated by a comma. The use of et al. is not acceptable.

Book with one author	Mason, Karen O. 1974. Women’s Labor Force Participation And Fertility. Research Triangle Park, NC: National Institutes of Health.
Book with two authors	Brelin, Gordon and Andrea Stum. 1978. A Goal to a Better Health: Basic Cooking Skills. New Jersey: Health Foundation.
Book with three or more authors	Jonessey, Vivian R., Martin O. Engle, and Cybil B. Forrester. 1989. Deaf History: Triumphs and Tragedies. Washington, DC: Deaf Club.

Works Cited format for Electronic Sources

If you are citing from an online publication, you should include all of the information that you would include for journals or articles. After this standard information, you should include the date you found the information on the world wide web (the date of retrieval) and the web address (URL) where you found the information.

The basic citing format for electronic sources is as follows:

• Author. Year published. “Article.” Publication Title, Volume:page. Retrieval date (web address).

Online journal article	Jacobsen, John, Jane A. Mulick, and Anne Schwartz. 1995. “A History of Facilitated Communication.” American Psychologist 50:95-98. Retrieved January 25, 1998 (http://www.apa.org/journals/jacobsen.html).
Online newspaper article	Goldstein, Amy. 1997. “Dying Patients’ Care Wishes Vary Widely.” Washington Post, October 15, p. H1. Retrieved January 25, 1998 (http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-10/15/01597-idx.html).