Sociology

ASA Style Citation requires credit must be given for all information whether it be a direct quote or a paraphrase. Generally you are required to give the following information: author’s last name, year of publication, and page number in parenthesis directly after the quote or paraphrase. Below are examples based on the situation.

Direct Quote

He stated, “Apes can gesture, but do not understand the grammatical structure of American Sign Language” (Smith 1994:345).

 

Paraphrase

It has been shown that apes do not actually understand the syntax and structure of ASL (Smith 1994:345).

 

Direct Quote with author’s name in sentence

According to Smith (1994:345), primates are able to gesture, "but do not understand the grammatical structure of American Sign Language".

 

Paraphrase with author’s name in sentence

Smith (1994) has proven that apes do not understand grammar in ASL (p.345).

 

One source with two authors

The Oxford English Dictionary was written “specifically for learners of English as a foreign or second language” (Hornby and Ruse 1976:82).

 

One source with two authors in the sentence

Hornby and Ruse (1976) explain that the Oxford English Dictionary was designed to be used mostly by new English users (p. 82).

Your bibliography gives documentation of what resources you utilized for your research. Below are examples of different bibliographic entries based on resource type. 

Book:
Single author

Mason, Karen O. 1974. Women’s Labor Force Participation And Fertility. Research Triangle Park, NC: National Institutes of Health.

Book:
Multiple authors

Brelin, Gordon and Andrea Stum. 1978. A Goal to a Better Health: Basic Cooking Skills. New Jersey: Health Foundation.

 

Journal Article:

Conger, Randy D. 1998. “The Effects of Positive Feedback.” American Journal of Sociology 79:252-259.

 

Magazine Article:

Solomon, Andrew. 1994. “Defiantly Deaf.” Newsweek, August 28, pp. 38-40.

 

Newspaper Article

Gauli, Melissa and Crystal Milten. 1992. “A New Look on Legal Unions.” Washington Post, January 13, pp. A2.

 

The 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. It is based on the Chicago Manual of Style which is included below as well.