Sociology: Citations and Statistical Guides

American Sociological Association Style Guide, 6th Edition

ISBN: 978-0912764559

Summary: ASA Style Guide is the authoritative reference for writing, submitting, editing, and copyediting manuscripts for ASA journals and other publications following ASA's unique format. 

• Order citations alphabetically (typically by author's last name)
• Include hanging indent after the first line
• References should be double-spaced
• Use italics for book and periodical titles 
• Capitalize main words in a title
• Format author in citations as follows:
  • one author includes last name, first name, middle initial (if used.) Example: Beattie, Irenee R. 
  • two or more authors includes last name, first name and first name last name. Example:  Beattie, Irenee R. and Linda Renzulli ; Beattie, Irenee R., Heather Macpherson Parrott, and Linda A. Renzulli
• DOIs are preferred over URLs when citing journal articles

Source: UC Merced LibGuide

A sociology manuscript has its own specifications:

• The text must be formatted in font 12 points, including the references and the footnotes.
• The margins should be 1” from all sides of the paper.
• You must have a separate title page for your
• The title page should include the name of authors, the word count, and a title footnote.
• Your paper should also have an abstract that is about 250 words or less.

According to Harvard Business School, the title page of ASA format style papers should contain the:

• The name of the author
• Institutional Affiliation
• The title of the paper: The chosen sociology research paper topic.
• The complete word count
• Running head
• Title footnote featuring the names and addresses of the author, credits, acknowledgment, and any grant information

Source: ASA Paper Format Write-Up Academic Papers

In-Text Citations

Use for quotes, paraphrases and summaries

• Basic format includes the last name of the author(s) and the publication year - Example: (Eaton 2016)
• Include page number when quoting directly, paraphrasing or when referring to specific passages - Example: (Beattie 2017: 96)
• If the author's name is included in the text, follow it with the publication year in parenthesis- Example: When Beattie (2017) studied...
• If referring to two authors of the same text, join last name with and. Example: (Kettrey and Pirtle 2014) 
• If the resource has more than three authors, list all the authors' last names and publication year for the first citation; for subsequent citations, use the first author's last name and et al. - Example (Brooks, Dodson and Hotchkiss 2010); (Brooks et al. 2010)
• If referring to more than one source in the same citation, separate citations with a semi-colon - Example: (Eaton 2016:45; Beattie 2017:96)

• If the works by the same author were published in the same year, add lowercase letters to the dates of publication and repeat them in the reference list - Example (Dodson 2006a; 2006b) 

Source: UC Merced LibGuide