ASA quick style guide

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The ASA citation style is intended for composing university and college research papers in the sphere of sociology. As a rule, it focuses on the organization of bibliographies together with footnotes. The ASA Guide defines standards for the given style published for the American Sociological Association, which is one of the main organizations for academic sociologists within the United States of America. The ASA research paper format is meant to assist writers and authors in writing manuscripts for the ASA publications.

To write a good and well-organized paper on Sociology, it is necessary to meet all general formatting instructions mentioned below:

  • Use 12-point font (it may be Times New Roman, Arial, etc.) for your double-spaced paper; note that only black color can be used.
  • Set 1-inch margins on all sides. In some other cases, margins may reach 1 ¼ at most.
  • Pages should be numbered.
  • Do not forget to divide the text into paragraphs.
  • Keep in mind that your paper has to include the title.
  • Usually, your name needs to be present at the cover page, though it will be the best to put it on every single page.
  • When your paper is partitioned into separate parts, every part has to be provided with a title typed in bold.
  • Introduce the quotation consisting of one or two lines in the body as any other sentence, but applying quotation marks.
  • Should you be expected to hand in your paper in the electronic format, it has to be presented in either .pdf, .doc, .rtf, or .html depending on the requirements of your instructor.
  • In general, it is better to avoid using endnotes alongside with footnotes.
  • Every single source that has been used to prepare the paper needs to be indicated on a separate page titled “References.” Here, your task is to put all sources in an alphabetical order with the surname of an author going first. When a source has several authors, organize references by publication dates. Sources cited need to be formatted with the usage of hanging indent.

When it is hard to understand how to complete the cover page in a correct way, ask your instructor or professor to give you the ASA title page example, or find it yourself online.

Remember that those quotations, which comprise more than three lines, should be organized as a block quote. It is not necessary to make corrections concerning spelling or grammar in quotes unless there are no other options. In instances when it is required to do just that, point out with brackets what has been changed by you. When bad grammar concerns you, it is always allowed to leave the quote, but you should follow it with sic meaning "it is no different from the original." If you want to assure yourself that you are going through all steps correctly when it comes to quoting, try looking for the ASA style guide sample paper and see how the quotes are structured there.

Getting back to endnotes and footnotes, it is worthy to keep in mind that they can be useful to introduce supporting and explanatory materials and facts. In accordance with the ASA citation guide, if you are going to apply them, assure yourself that they are numbered in a proper way. Endnotes are placed at the closure of the whole text. You can place footnotes on every page’s bottom in small type. Pick one style and adhere to it; remember that endnotes together with footnotes are, in general, not applied to regular citations.

ASA Citation Style Recommendations

The given style is considered a parenthetical style of citation, which takes over an author-date system of documents. Such format tends to be very convenient for sociologists as they are not distracted by confusing footnotes. This format includes:

  • In-text citations put close to sources; such citations cover the date of publication together with the surname of an author embraced with parentheses
  • Section titled “References” that enumerates all sources referred to in the essay or paper, including complete publication data for every single source

All in-text citations have to be linked to the reference list entry. The purpose of such citations lies in directing your audience to the list of sources used. Therefore, the given list needs to be organized in alphabetical order and give all the necessary pieces of information for readers to find the initial source easily. If you are not sure whether the list of references was prepared correctly, it is better to address the ASA citation creator and check the whole list.

The given format has a lot of similar features with Chicago and APA formatting styles. At the same time, all mentioned styles possess several considerable differences; for this reason, it is quite significant to go by the official ASA manual guide.

ASA CITATION GUIDE

ASA citation format is quite similar to the author-date system accepted by Chicago formatting style. Every single in-text citation comprises such elements as the surname of a writer or author and year of publication in parentheses. In general, the given citation is put at the end of the sentence. Thus, it is extremely important to refer to every source accurately and completely to get rid of plagiarism.

When your ASA in-text citation is done, it is recommended to check it, looking through examples below:

  • When the name of an author is indicated in the body, add a parenthetical citation, pointing out the publication year

    When Chu (1975) studied…

  • When the author’s names are not pointed out in the body, mention the author’s surname together with the year of publication in parentheses

    When the study was completed… (Snow 1991).

  • Add page numbers when you are going to quote directly from a source

    …as reported by Chavez (1971:82).

  • If this or that source has three writers, refer to all three surnames in your first in-text citation; in all other cases, apply et al.

    This was reinforced by recent research on the topic (Johnson, Smith, and Marcus 1998)

    Later: (Johnson et al. 1998)

  • When one of the sources has five authors or even more, apply et al. in every citation

  • In compliance with the ASA style citation briefing notes, in case you refer to a few sources when writing the same statement, dates of publication and surnames of authors need to be differentiated from others with a semicolon.

    Recent studies confirmed this belief (Thompson 2011; Brown 2012; Stark 2017).

  • In case a source has been reprinted once or several times, point out the latest version

    (Marwell 1997/2010).

ASA CITATION FORMAT AND REFERENCING

A correct reference list is of great importance as it gives an opportunity to the audience to find and verify materials applied by you within the work. ASA format citation tips pointed out below will definitely assist you in arranging the list of references:

  • A reference list always starts with a new page titled "References."
  • Enumerate all citations by the surname of an author; remember that citations have to be enumerated in alphabetical order.
  • Avoid including initials but indicate the first names.
  • In accordance with the ASA reference format rules, citations have to be double-spaced; apply a double line in order to make the space between entries.
  • When adding two names together in one citation, “&” is not an acceptable option, as “and” should be used instead.
  • Put a comma when pointing out more than two names of writers.
  • Your task is to capitalize all words, excluding prepositions, conjunctions, and articles; you can capitalize the above-mentioned exceptions only when starting titles or subtitles.
  • When adding several works composed by the same writer(s), first add their complete names to each citation in accordance with the ASA writing style guide. After that, you have to organize these citations chronologically,
  • starting from the earliest piece of work.
  • It can be a case when an author emerges as the first one in a citation with multiple writers or a single-authored citation; then, you need to put all citations with a single writer foremost.

  • Gladwell, Malcolm. 2002. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. New York, NY: Back Bay Books.

    Gladwell, Malcolm and Friedrich, Malte. 2016. Tipping Point: Wie kleine Dinge Grosses bewirken können. München, Deutschland: Goldmann Verlag.

  • For several authors, change the first names of authors (Horovitz, Alan V., Hoge, Dean R., and James Brown) – enumerating them by the surnames in alphabetical order.
  • Differentiate books composed in the same year and by the same author(s) by means of adding various letters to the date (1998a, 1998b, 1998c) – enumerate these works by titles alphabetically.

The ASA style paper example for the references:

Ehrenreich, Barbara. 2009a. Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Ehrenreich, Barbara. 2009b. Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever’s Search for the Truth about Everything. New York: Twelve.

  • Place a state abbreviation only in case a city of publication is not widely known. For instance, Los Angeles does not require abbreviations of the state. Nevertheless, Cambridge has to have an appropriate state abbreviation.
  • As it can be seen from any ASA format template, in the case when there is no date, you should apply N.d. instead of the date. If the referred material is unpublished yet, you may point out Forthcoming instead of the year and add the publisher title.

In agreement with your publisher or professor’s preferences, it can be necessary to add a reference list together with a page of bibliography. Therefore, the next examples will introduce ways of the common usage of various source types:

  • Book with one author

    Author’s full name (place the last name out front). Publication Date. Italicized Publication Name. Location of a publisher, state or province postal code: Name of the publisher.

    Welch, Kathleen E. 1999. Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Book with two or more authors

    Author 1 (change the surname), Author 2 (add a full surname), and Author 3. Date of publication. Italicized Name of the Publication. Publisher’s location, postal code of state or province: Name of publisher.

    ASA book citation example:

    Kayakami, Julie, Maria Rodriquez, and Francine Depardue. 2001. Learning Gender. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Articles Printed in Journals

    Author 1 (invert the surname), Author 2 (add a complete surname, which, as a rule, is not inverted), and Author 3. Year of publication. “Name of Article.” Name of Publication in italics Volume Number (Issue Number): article’s pagination.

    Bianciardi, Roberto. 2002. “Italian Immigrants in New York.” Sociology of Immigration 12(4): 123-45.

    Goodman, Leo A. 1947a. “The Analysis of Systems of Qualitative Variables When Some of the Variables Are Unobservable. Part I-A Modified Latent Structure Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 79: 1179-1259.

    Please draw your attention to the first example, and you will see that it contains the issue number indicated after volume number; you have to add issue numbers there to assure that a source can be located easily.

  • Books’ Chapters

    Author 1 (invert the surname), Author 2 (add a complete surname without inverting the surname), and Author 3. Publication year. "Article’s Title.” Pp. in Italicized Name of Publication, edited by Editor 1, Editor 2, and Editor 3 (do not invert names and apply editors’ initials for first and middle names). Publisher’s location, postal code of state or province; Name of publisher.

    The ASA format sample paper citation: Wells, Ida B. 1995. “Lynch Law in All Its Phases.” Pp. 80-89 in With Pen and Voice: A Critical Anthology of Nineteenth-Century African-American Women, edited by S.W. Logan. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Are you going to cite the other source types? If yes, you may check the Section 4.3.2.2. in the official ASA Style Guide for a great number of examples that will show you how to refer to other documents. It may be dissertations, magazine articles, major reference books, government documents, presentations, etc.

More often than not, students tend to leave the task to create the reference list until the very last second. Of course, when doing so, one should mind possible consequences. To avoid the problems, it is better to look for a good ASA citation maker online. Such citation maker will be able to compose your whole list in just a few minutes.

Citing Electronic Sources

Across all disciplines in the field of sociology, researchers and students use a large number of online source types in order to back up ideas and thoughts from social media channels to websites, blogs, machine-readable data files, DVDs, and so on. There are several points to remember when referring to electronic sources:

  • Add all basic elements concerning a source to give readers a possibility to access the material easily. If you want to be sure that you have created a correct citation, you can find the ASA format example paper with the list of references.
  • Sources that will not be changed, in most cases have to be referred to in the print form.
  • Whenever possible, you need to add an address (DOI or URL), year of publication, document’s name, and the name of the author.

ASA WEBSITE CITATION RULES: URL INDICATION

A URL is considered a very important element when one needs to locate an online document. Nevertheless, websites are often updated or modified, so it is necessary to mind the steps mentioned below when adding a URL to a citation.

  • Be sure that a source may be easily identified; to do that, check the URL spelling
  • Do not cite a source with the URL that does not exist anymore
  • Avoid typing the URL address; instead of that, copy and paste it from your browser
  • It may be useful to print and save all the data obtained from the website as the information can be lost when the URL is modified.

Below, you may familiarize yourself with a list of examples of how to cite electronic sources in a correct way.

E-Books

  • In case you have used an e-book online, avoid adding numbers of pages and access date.
  • If an e-book can be used in several formats, list these formats as well (Also available at: [URL]).

The ASA writing style example of citation: Torres, Carlos Alberto and Theodore R. Mitchell, eds. 1998. Sociology of Education: Emerging Perspectives. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Retrieved April 26, 2005 (http://www.nettlibrary.com/).


Printed edition of a book that has been accessed through online library

Welch, Kathleen E. 1999. Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Retrieved October 21, 2004 (http://www.nettlibrary.com)


Online periodicals available in both online & print form

Ferrell, Robert H. 1990. “Truman’s Place in History.” Reviews in American History 18 (1): 1-9.


E-journals with DOI

In case you include DOI, cut it and paste directly from the article

Sweeten, Gary, Shown 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.


Websites

In general, when being engaged in the ASA website citation indication procedure, remember that any essential data from the website has to be formally cited with the date of access or URL. Therefore, always pay close attention to your citations in the reference list.

The ASA citation website example:

Bird Studies Canada. 2004. “Avibase: The World Bird Database.” Retrieved July 15, 2005 (http://www. Waviabase.org/avibase.jsp?page=home&lang=EN).

A clear introduction of the paper in accordance with all style specifications is able to add to the professional completeness. Nevertheless, there are cases when students just cannot cope with a huge pile of various homework assignments. When such situation occurs, many of them prefer to ask for a qualified assistance, which implies addressing professional writing companies such as Pro-Papers. With this in mind, it is useful to know that Pro-Papers is considered a credible organization in the sphere of academic writing services. Not once or even twice the company has been tried and tested by countless customers.

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