ASA
1
American Sociological Association (ASA) (4th ed.)
Information taken from the American Sociological Association Style Guide
Created by the University Writing Center
815-753-6636 http://uwc.niu.edu/uwc
(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 (greatgrandfather), numbers (forty-four), electronic resources (e-mail, e-journal)
 use an 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)
ASA
2
 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)
ASA
3
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
Book with multiple authors
Chapter in book
Online book
Journal article
Online journal article
Dissertation/Thesis
Jones, Franklin. 1995. Sociology Investigated. Boston: MIT
Press.
Jones, Franklin and Joan Quint. 2010. The
Sociology/Psychology Connection. Chicago: Wright
Press.
Jones, Franklin. 1997. “The Criminologist in Action.” Pp.
185–225 in Jobs You Would Love, edited by P. A.
Detter. Boston: MIT Press.
Jones, Franklin. 2011. Sociology Investigated, Vol. 2. Boston:
MIT Press. Retrieved June 10, 2013 (http://www.ebookreader.com/publications).
Smith, Lee, Amanda Smith, and Ben Johnson. 2011. “The
Evolution of Criminology, 2000–2010.” Sociology
Today 4 (18): 210-284.
Smith, Lee, Amanda Smith, and Ben Johnson. 2011. “The
Evolution of Criminology, 2000–2010.” Sociology
Today 4 (18): 210-284. Retrieved June 10, 2013
(http://www.sociologytoday/publications/2011)
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.
ASA
4
Website
University Writing Center. 2013. “Documentation Handouts.”
DeKalb, IL: NIU-UWC. Retrieved June 10, 2013
(http://uwc.niu.edu).
ASA
5
Running Head SHORTENED TITLE
Full Title of the Document:
Subtitle After the Colon
Author’s Full Name
Institution
Word Count (Text, footnotes, and references)