Skip to Main Content

ASA Citation Format - American Sociological Association

Paperpile

The ASA Style Guide (6th Edition) is now available in Paperpile. In order for you to get the ASA style complete the following steps:

  • From the menu, click the drop down arrow next to "Cite"
  • Click on "Change Citation Style"
  • Search for "American Sociological Association"
  • Select "American Sociological Association, 6th Edition"
  • Click "Set Citation Style"
  • From the menu, "Cite" again to generate your new list in ASA format.

Articles in Print

Basic form for a journal article is 1) Author’s last name, followed by a comma and the first name and middle initial ending with a period. 2) Year of  publication followed by a period. 3) Title of article in quotations and ending with a period inside the closing quotation mark. 4) Name of journal in italics 5) volume number followed by colon, page number(s) and period. Use the issue number following the volume number in parenthesis or exact date for journal article prior to the volume number for journals that do not number pages consecutively within a volume.

One Author
Ngai, Mae M. 1998. "Legacies of Exclusion: Illegal Chinese Immigration during the Cold Years." Journal of American Ethnic History 18(1):3-35.

Two or More Authors
Exum, William H., Robert J. Menges, Bari Watkins, and Patricia Berglund. 1984. "Making it at the top: Women and minority faculty in the academic labor market." American Behavioral Scientist 27(3):301-324.

Books

Basic form for a book entry is 1) Author’s last name, followed by a comma and the first name and middle initial, ending with a period. 2) Year of publication followed by a period. 3) Title of book italicized ending with a period. 4) Place of publication, followed by a colon and name of publisher ending with a period. 

One Author  
De Anda, Roberto M. 1995. Chicanas and Chicanos in Contemporary Society. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Two Authors
Herrera-Sobek, María and Helena María Viramontes. 1995. Chicana (W)rites: On Word and Film. Berkeley, CA: Third Woman Press.

Edition of Book
Acuña, Rodolfo F. 2011. Occupied America: a history of Chicanos. 7th ed. Boston, MA: Longman.

Edited Book
Jelin, Elizabeth, ed. 1991. Family, household, and gender relations in Latin America. NY: Routledge, Chapman and Hall.
Note: When two or more editors place "eds".

Chapter in Book
Ruiz, Vicki L. 1987. "Star struck: Acculturation, adolescence, and Mexican American women, 1920-1950." Pp. 333-354 in Small worlds: Children and adolescents in American, 1850-1950, edited by E. West and P. Petrik. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.

Compilation
Andersen, Margaret L. and Patricia Hill Collins, comp. 1998. Race, class, and gender: an anthology. 3rd ed. Belmonth, CA: Wadsworth Pub. Co.

No Author
Manual of Style. 1993. 14th ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Note: List books with no author alphabetically by the first significant word in the title.

Ebook
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. 2002. The Dress of women: a critical introduction to the symbolism and sociology of clothing. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press. Retrieved September 18, 2013 (http://site.ebrary.com/lib/sjsu/docDetail.action?docID=10005606).

E-Resources: Articles, Newspapers, and Web

Article Databases
Knoll, Benjamin R. 2009. "Amigo De La Raza? Reexamining Determinants of Latino Support in the U.S. Congress." Social Science Quarterly 90(1):179-195 Retrieved September 18, 2013 (http://search.proquest.com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/docview/59986606?accountid=10361).

Articles with Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Bryant, A. N., & Kim, G. 2013. The relation between acculturation and alcohol consumption patterns among older Asian and Hispanic immigrants. Aging & Mental Health 17(2):147-156. doi:10.1080/13607863.2012.727382.

Web Version of Newspapers
Clary, Mike. 2000. "Vieques Protesters Removed Without Incident." Los Angeles Times, May 5. Retrieved May 5, 2000 (http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/updates/lat_vieques000505.htm).

Web Base Journals
Smith, Herman W. and Takako Nomi. 2000. "Is Amae the Key to Understanding Japanese Culture?" Journal of Sociology 5(1). Retrieved May 5, 2000 (http://www.sociology.org/content/vol005.001/smith-nomi.html).

Information Posted on a Web Site
Paino, Maria, Chastity Blankenship, Liz Graverholz, and Jeffrey Chin. 2012. "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Teaching Sociology." Washington, DC: American Sociological Association. Retrieved September 17, 2013 (http://www.asanet.org/documents/journals/pdfs/ts/Apr12TSFeature.pdf).

Newspapers and Magazines Articles in Print

Basic form for a newspaper or magazine entry is 1) Author’s last name, followed by a comma and the first name and middle initial, ending with a period. 2) Year of publication followed by a period. 3) Title of article in quotations and ending with a period inside the closing quotation mark. 4) Name of newspaper/magazine in italics 5) date of publication followed by a comma 6) page number of article within the publication ending with a period.

Magazine
Jana, Reena. 2000. "Preventing culture clashes - As the IT workforce grows more diverse, managers must improve awareness without creating inconsistency." InfoWorld, April 24, pp. 95.

Newspaper
Rimland, Bernard. 2000. "Do children's shots invite autism?" Los Angeles Times, April 26, pp. A13, A18.

Other

Government Documents
Since the nature of public documents is so varied, the form of entry for documents cannot be standardized. The essential rule is to provide sufficient  information so that the reader can locate the reference easily. For example see the following:

United States. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development. 1999. Rehab a home with HUD's 203(k): HUD and FHA are on your side. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.

Dissertations and Theses
Valencia, Albert. 1995. "An examination of selected characteristics of Mexican-American battered women and implications for service providers." Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Education, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA.

Thiele, Megan. 2011. "Class, Cultural Capital and the Elite University: A Look at Academic and Social Adjustment and Relations with Authority." University of California, Irvine.  Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Database, 874157583.
Note: The number listed at the end of the citation is the ProQuest document ID.

Footnotes and Endnotes

Try to avoid footnotes, but if necessary, use footnotes to cite material of limited availability or to add information presented in a table. Footnotes should be numbered consecutively throughout the essay with superscript Arabic numerals and included at the bottom of the paper or in a separate section headed "Endnotes."