ASA 1

American Sociological Association (ASA) (4thed.)

Information taken from the American Sociological Association Style Guide

Created by the University Writing Center

815-753-6636

(Summer 2013)

General guidelines: Writers should

double space entire document (block quotations may be single spaced)

Times New Roman 12-point font

1.25 inch margins

number all pages sequentially

use standard tabs/hanging indent

avoid writing in first person and injecting opinion and/or biases

use active voice and specific and concrete word choices and/or examples

number lists of important points in text (The writing center conducted sessions on the following skills: (1) clarifying ideas, (2) using sources, and (3) effective word choices.)

use footnotes/endnotes to explain text or to present additional information (use Word feature to set them up)

Punctuation rules:

hyphenate compound adjectives (student-focused lessons), compound nouns (great-grandfather), numbers (forty-four), electronic resources (e-mail, e-journal)

usean Em dash to signal break in thought (The students—Emily, Fredric, and Jim—were part of the tutoring team.)

use an En dash to show ranges of pages (122–135) or dates (1950–1985) and negative numbers (–16)

use quotation marks to indicate

  • verbatim or quoted material
  • title or article or chapter in reference list
  • emphasis of sarcasm, irony, or humor
  • denote invented terminology

put spaces between the periods in an ellipses (. . .) and keep them all on the same line

add a fourth period if it is the end of a sentence (. . . .)

use ellipses at the beginning and end of a direct quotation to indicate missing information

place brackets around any changes to punctuation and/or wording

Spelling:

use first spelling in dictionary if multiple options are available

spell out words like percent and versus

Capitalization:

all words in a title except for prepositions (The Joy of Punctuation and Grammar)

capitalize names of racial and ethnic groups (Asian, African American), but do not capitalize black and white in reference to groups

references to regions in United States (Midwest, South)

first word in hyphenated term (The Self-analysis of First-year students), unless is a proper noun

the first word after a colon in-text if the preceding and following ideas are complete sentences (The popularity of the amusement park activities were as follows: The bumper cars were first, and they were followed by the dunk tank and the roller coaster, respectively.)

Numbers:

spell out one through nine, including ordinal numbers (first, fifth)

use numerals from 10 or greater in text, including ordinal numbers (10th, 88th)

use numerals for references to tables, figures, hypotheses, etc. (Table 5)

spell out numbers at beginning of a sentence

spell out centuries and common fractions

be consistent when mixing numbers (There were only 8 students who qualified in the class of 22.)

use numbers for percentages (8 percent)

use numbers for amounts less than 1 million but number and word for over 1 million (13,853 students, 6 billion students)

use numbers to express time (6:42 p.m.), money ($3), or sample sizes (N = 24)

Verb use

Literature review: generally use past tense

Methodology: uses past tense

Results section: either past or present is acceptable

Document organization:

Title page: full title of document, author names and institutions, running head, word count for manuscript (including footnotes and references) see 6.1.2

Abstract: summary of most important parts of document

  • separate page
  • no more than 200 words in one paragraph

Document

References:

  • only works cited
  • double spaced
  • appear before the appendices

Bibliography: includes works consulted and cited (not usually included in academic assignments)

Headings:

FIRST-LEVEL HEAD (left justified with all capital letters)

Second-level head (left justified with all words but prepositions capitalized)

Third-level head.(tabbed over with only first word and proper nouns capitalized)

In-text citations:

do not use author’s first name, only last name

author’s name in text . . . Johnson (2010) noted that . . .

author’s name in parenthetical citation . . . the results suggested that (Johnson 2010).

when there is a direct quotation, include the page number (Johnson 2010: 38).

multiple authors (Johnson and Quint 2011)

3 or more authors cite everyone the first time (Johnson, Quint, and Brewer 2012) and then use et al. (Johnson et al. 2012)

use all names in the reference list

use semicolons between authors who have not written collectively (Johnson 2010; Johnson and Quint 2011; Johnson, Quint, and Brewer 2012)

Reference list entries

alphabetize by first author’s last name

include first name and surnames for all authors

invert only the first author’s name

give author’s/authors’ full name in all references (even if there are multiple references)

organize chronologically (earliest to most recent) if author has multiple references

distinguish works by the same author and same year with a letter reference (Johnson 2000a, 2000b, 2000c)

use N.D. if there is no publication date

include state/country abbreviation only if the publication location is unclear

Book with one author / Jones, Franklin. 1995. Sociology Investigated. Boston: MIT Press.
Book with multiple authors / Jones, Franklin and Joan Quint. 2010. The Sociology/Psychology Connection. Chicago: Wright Press.
Chapter in book / Jones, Franklin. 1997. “The Criminologist in Action.” Pp. 185–225 in Jobs You Would Love, edited by P. A. Detter. Boston: MIT Press.
Online book / Jones, Franklin. 2011. Sociology Investigated, Vol. 2. Boston: MIT Press. Retrieved June 10, 2013 (
Journal article / Smith, Lee, Amanda Smith, and Ben Johnson. 2011. “The Evolution of Criminology, 2000–2010.” Sociology Today 4 (18): 210-284.
Online journal article / Smith, Lee, Amanda Smith, and Ben Johnson. 2011. “The Evolution of Criminology, 2000–2010.” Sociology Today 4 (18): 210-284. Retrieved June 10, 2013 (
Dissertation/Thesis / Williams, Jennifer. 2009. “Self-efficacy and Success in Social Work.” Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Tulsa. Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertation & Theses Database, 185649872.
Website / University Writing Center. 2013. “Documentation Handouts.” DeKalb, IL: NIU-UWC. Retrieved June 10, 2013 (

Running Head SHORTENED TITLE

Full Title of the Document:

Subtitle After the Colon

Author’s Full Name

Institution

Word Count (Text, footnotes, and references)