18.1.4 Italics and Quotation Marks
18.2.2 Sources That May Be Omitted
A citation style used widely in most social sciences and in the natural and physical sciences is the author-date style, so called because the author’s name and the date of publication are the critical elements for identifying sources. This chapter presents an overview of the basic pattern for citations in author-date style, including both reference list entries and parenthetical citations. Examples of parenthetical citations are identified with a P; examples of reference list entries are identified with an R.
In author-date style, you signal that you have used a source by placing a parenthetical citation (including author, date, and relevant page numbers) next to your reference to that source:
According to one scholar, “The railroads had made Chicago the most important meeting place between East and West” (Cronon 1991, 92–93).
At the end of the paper, you list all sources in a reference list. That list normally includes every source you cited in a parenthetical citation and sometimes others you consulted but did not cite. Since parenthetical citations do not include complete bibliographical information for a source, you must include that information in your reference list. All reference list entries have the same general form:
R: Cronon, William. 1991. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W. W. Norton.
Readers expect you to follow the rules for correct citations exactly. These rules cover not only what data you must include and their order but also punctuation, capitalization, italicizing, and so on. To get your citations right, you must pay close attention to many minute details that few researchers can easily remember. Chapter 19 provides a ready reference guide to those details.
Although sources and their citations come in almost endless variety, you are likely to use only a few kinds. While you may need to look up details to cite some unusual sources, you can easily learn the basic patterns for the few kinds you will use most often. You can then create templates that will help you record bibliographical data quickly and reliably as you read.
The rest of this section describes the basic patterns, and figure 18.1 provides templates for several common types of sources. Chapter 19 includes examples of a wide range of sources, including exceptions to the patterns discussed here.
The order of elements in reference list entries follows the same general pattern for all types of sources: author, date (year) of publication, title, other facts of publication. Parenthetical citations include only the first two of these elements. If they cite specific passages, they also include page numbers or other locating information; reference list entries do not, though they do include a full span of page numbers for a source that is part of a larger whole, such as an article or a chapter.
In reference list entries, separate most elements with periods; in parenthetical citations, do not use a punctuation mark between the author and the date, but separate the date from a page number with a comma.
Capitalize most titles headline style, but capitalize titles in foreign languages sentence style. (See 22.3.1 for both styles.) Capitalize proper nouns in the usual way (see chapter 22). In some fields, you may be required to use sentence style for most titles except for titles of journals, magazines, and newspapers; check your local guidelines.
Figure 18.1. Templates for reference list entries and parenthetical citations
The following templates show what elements should be included in what order when citing several common types of sources in reference lists (R) and parenthetical citations (P). They also show punctuation, capitalization of titles, and when to use italics or quotation marks. Gray shading shows abbreviations (or their spelled-out versions) and other terms as they would actually appear in a citation. XX stands in for page numbers actually cited, YY for a full span of page numbers for an article or a chapter.
Books
1. Single Author or Editor
R: Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Name. Year of Publication. Title of Book: Subtitle of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher’s Name. |
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Gladwell, Malcolm. 2000. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Boston: Little, Brown. |
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P: (Author’s Last Name Year of Publication, XX–XX) |
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(Gladwell 2000, 64–65) |
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For a book with an editor instead of an author, adapt the pattern as follows: |
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R: Editor’s Last Name, Editor’s First Name, ed. Year of Publication … |
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Greenberg, Joel, ed. 2008 … |
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P: (Editor’s Last Name Year of Publication, XX–XX) |
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(Greenberg 2008, 75–80) |
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2. Multiple Authors
For a book with two authors, use the following pattern:
R: Author #1’s Last Name, Author #1’s First Name, and Author #2’s First and Last Names. Year of Publication. Title of Book: Subtitle of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher’s Name. |
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Morey, Peter, and Amina Yaqin. 2011. Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and Representation after 9/11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. |
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P: (Author #1’s Last Name and Author #2’s Last Name Year of Publication, XX–XX) |
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(Morey and Yaqin 2011, 52) |
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For a book with three authors, adapt the pattern as follows: |
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R: Author #1’s Last Name, Author #1’s First Name, Author #2’s First and Last Names, and Author #3’s First and Last Names. Year of Publication … |
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Soss, Joe, Richard C. Fording, and Sanford F. Schram. 2011 … |
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P: (Author #1’s Last Name, Author #2’s Last Name, and Author #3’s Last Name Year of Publication, XX–XX) |
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(Soss, Fording, and Schram 2011, 135–36) |
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For a book with four or more authors, adapt the parenthetical citation pattern only as follows: |
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P: (Author #1’s Last Name et al. Year of Publication, XX–XX) |
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(Bernstein et al. 2010, 114–15) |
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3. Author(s) Plus Editor or Translator
For a book with an author plus an editor, use the following pattern:
R: Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Name. Year of Publication. Title of Book: Subtitle of Book. Edited by Editor’s First and Last Names. Place of Publication: Publisher’s Name. |
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Austen, Jane. 2011. Persuasion: An Annotated Edition. Edited by Robert Morrison. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. |
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P: (Author’s Last Name Year of Publication, XX–XX) |
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(Austen 2011, 311–12) |
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If a book has a translator instead of an editor, substitute the phrase Translated by and the translator’s name for the editor data in the reference list entry. |
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4. Edition Number
R: Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Name. Year of Publication. Title of Book: Subtitle of Book. Edition Number ed. Place of Publication: Publisher’s Name. |
Van Maanen, John. 2011. Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. |
P: (Author’s Last Name Year of Publication, XX–XX) |
(Van Maanen 2011, 84) |
5. Single Chapter in an Edited Book
R: Chapter Author’s Last Name, Chapter Author’s First Name. Year of Publication. “Title of Chapter: Subtitle of Chapter.” In Title of Book: Subtitle of Book, edited by Editor’s First and Last Names, YY–YY. Place of Publication: Publisher’s Name. |
Ramírez, Ángeles. 2010. “Muslim Women in the Spanish Press: The Persistence of Subaltern Images.” In Muslim Women in War and Crisis: Representation and Reality, edited by Faegheh Shirazi, 227–44. Austin: University of Texas Press. |
P: (Chapter Author’s Last Name Year of Publication, XX–XX) |
(Ramírez 2010, 231) |
Journal Articles
6. Journal Article in Print
R: Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Name. Year of Publication. “Title of Article: Subtitle of Article.” Title of Journal Volume Number, Issue Number (Additional Date Information): YY–YY. |
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Bogren, Alexandra. 2011. “Gender and Alcohol: The Swedish Press Debate.” Journal of Gender Studies 20, no. 2 (June): 155–69. |
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P: (Author’s Last Name Year of Publication, XX–XX) |
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(Bogren 2011, 156) |
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For an article with multiple authors, follow the relevant pattern for authors’ names in template 2. |
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7. Journal Article Online
For a journal article consulted online, include an access date and a URL. For articles that include a DOI, form the URL by appending the DOI to http://dx.doi.org/ rather than using the URL in your address bar. The DOI for the Kiser article in the example below is 10.1086/658052.
R: Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Name. Year of Publication. “Title of Article: Subtitle of Article.” Title of Journal Volume Number, Issue Number (Additional Date Information): YY–YY. Accessed Date of Access. URL. |
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Kiser, Lisa J. 2011. “Silencing the Lambs: Economics, Ethics, and Animal Life in Medieval Franciscan Hagiography.” Modern Philology 108, no. 3 (February): 323–42. Accessed September 18, 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/658052. |
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P: (Author’s Last Name Year of Publication, xx) |
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(Kiser 2011, 340) |
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See 15.4.1 for more details. |
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Titles of larger entities (books, journals) are printed in italics; titles of smaller entities (chapters, articles) are printed in roman type and enclosed in quotation marks. Titles of unpublished works (such as dissertations) are printed in roman type and enclosed in quotation marks, even if they are book length. See also 22.3.2.
In titles, any numbers are spelled out or given in numerals exactly as they are in the original. Page numbers that are in roman numerals in the original are presented in lowercase roman numerals. All other numbers (such as chapter numbers or figure numbers) are given in arabic numerals, even if they are in roman numerals or spelled out in the original.
Abbreviate terms such as editor and translator (ed. and trans.) when they come after a name, but spell them out when they introduce it (Edited by). The plural is usually formed by adding s (eds.) unless the abbreviation ends in an s (use trans. for both singular and plural). Terms such as volume, edition, and number (vol., ed., and no.) are always abbreviated.
Reference list entries have a hanging indentation: the first line is flush left and all following lines are indented the same amount as the first line of a paragraph. Parenthetical citations are placed within the text and are not indented.
In papers that use author-date style, the reference list presents full bibliographical information for all the sources cited in parenthetical citations (other than a few special types of sources; see 18.2.2). You may also include works that were important to your thinking but that you did not specifically mention in the text. In addition to providing bibliographical information, reference lists show readers the extent of your research and its relationship to prior work, and they help readers use your sources in their own research. If you use the author-date citation style, you must include a reference list in your paper.
Label the list References. See figure A.16 in the appendix for a sample page of a reference list.
18.2.1.1 ALPHABETICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL BY AUTHOR. A reference list is normally a single list of all sources arranged alphabetically by the last name of the author, editor, or whoever is first in each entry. (For alphabetizing foreign names, compound names, and other special cases, see 18.2.1.2.) Most word processors provide an alphabetical sorting function; if you use it, first make sure each entry is followed by a hard return. If you are writing a thesis or dissertation, your department or university may specify that you should alphabetize the entries letter by letter or word by word; see 16.58–61 of The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition (2010), for an explanation of these two systems.
If your reference list includes two or more works written, edited, or translated by the same individual, arrange the entries chronologically by publication date. For all entries after the first, replace the individual’s name with a long dash, called a 3-em dash (see 21.7.3). For edited or translated works, put a comma and the appropriate designation (ed., trans., and so on) after the dash. List all such works before any that the individual coauthored or coedited. Note that it is best to make all these adjustments manually—after you have sorted your complete reference list alphabetically by name.
R: Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1988. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press.
_______, ed. 2002. The Classic Slave Narratives. New York: Penguin Putnam.
_______. 2004. America behind the Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans. New York: Warner Books.
_______. 2010. Tradition and the Black Atlantic: Critical Theory in the African Diaspora. New York: BasicCivitas.
_______. 2011. Black in Latin America. New York: New York University Press.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Cornel West. 2000. The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country. New York: Free Press.
The same principles apply to works by a single group of authors named in the same order.
R: Marty, Martin E., and R. Scott Appleby. 1992. The Glory and the Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press.
_______, eds. 2004. Accounting for Fundamentalisms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Marty, Martin E., and Micah Marty. 1998. When True Simplicity Is Gained: Finding Spiritual Clarity in a Complex World. Grand Rapids, Ml: William B. Eerdmans.
If your reference list includes more than one work published in the same year by an author or group of authors named in the same order, arrange the entries alphabetically by title (ignoring articles such as a or the). Add the letters a, b, c, and so forth to the year, set in roman type without an intervening space. Your parenthetical citations to these works should include the letters (see 18.3.2).
R: Fogel, Robert William. 2004a. The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100: Europe, America, and the Third World. New York: Cambridge University Press.
_______. 2004b. “Technophysio Evolution and the Measurement of Economic Growth.” Journal of Evolutionary Economics 14, no. 2: 217–21.
If a book or journal article does not have an author or editor (or other named compiler, such as a translator), put the title first in your reference list entry and alphabetize based on it, ignoring articles such as a or the.
R: Account of the Operations of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India. 1870–1910. 22 vols. Dehra Dun: Survey of India.
“The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India.” 1863. Calcutta Review 38:26-62.
“State and Prospects of Asia.” 1839. Quarterly Review 63, no. 126 (March): 369–402.
For magazine and newspaper articles without authors, use the title of the magazine or newspaper in place of the author (see 19.3 and 19.4). For other types of sources, see the relevant section in chapter 19 for guidance; if not stated otherwise, use a title in this position.
18.2.1.2 SPECIAL TYPES OF NAMES. Some authors’ names consist of more than a readily identifiable “first name” and “last name.” In many cases you can determine the correct order by consulting your library’s catalog. For historical names, a good source is Merriam-Webster’s Biographical Dictionary. This section outlines some general principles for alphabetizing such names in your reference list. In shortened or parenthetical notes, use the last name exactly as inverted (shown below in boldface). If your paper involves many names from a particular foreign language, follow the conventions for that language.
■ Compound names. Alphabetize compound last names, including hyphenated names, by the first part of the compound. If a woman uses both her own family name and her husband’s but does not hyphenate them, generally alphabetize by the second surname. While many foreign languages have predictable patterns for compound names (see below), others—such as French and German—do not.
Kessler-Harris, Alice
Hine, Darlene Clark
Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre
■ Names with particles. Depending on the language, particles such as de, di, D,’ and van may or may not be considered the first part of a last name for alphabetizing. Consult one of the resources noted above if you are unsure about a particular name. Note that particles may be either lowercased or capitalized, and some are followed by an apostrophe.
de Gaulle, Charles
di Leonardo, Micaela
Van Rensselaer, Stephen
Beauvoir, Simone de
Kooning, Willem de
Medici, Lorenzo de’
■ Names beginning with “Mac,” “Saint,” or “ O’.” Names that begin with Mac, Saint, or O’ can have many variations in abbreviations (Mc, St.), spelling (Sainte, San), capitalization (Macmillan, McAllister), and hyphenation or apostrophes (O’Neill or Odell; Saint-Gaudens or St. Denis). Alphabetize all such names based on the letters actually present; do not group them because they are similar.
■ Spanish names. Many Spanish last names are compound names consisting of an individual’s paternal and maternal family names, sometimes joined by the conjunction y. Alphabetize such names under the first part.
Ortega y Gasset, José
Sanchez Mendoza, Juana
■ Arabic names. Alphabetize Arabic last names that begin with the particle al- or el- (“the”) under the element following the particle. Names that begin with Abu, Abd, and Ibn, like English names beginning with Mac or Saint, should be alphabetized under these terms.
Hakim, Tawfiq al-
Jamal, Muhammad Hamid al-
Abu Zafar Nadvi, Syed
Ibn Saud, Aziz
■ Chinese and Japanese names. If an author with a Chinese or Japanese name follows traditional usage (family name followed by given name), do not invert the name or insert a comma between the “first” and “last” names. If the author follows Westernized usage (given name followed by family name), treat the name as you would an English name.
Traditional usage |
Westernized usage |
Chao Wu-chi |
Tsou, Tang |
Yoshida Shigeru |
Kurosawa, Noriaki |
18.2.1.3 CATEGORIZED LISTINGS. Because readers following a parenthetical citation will have only an author and a date to help them identify the relevant reference list entry, organize the list as described above except in rare cases. Under the following circumstances, you may consider dividing the list into separate categories:
■ If you have more than three or four entries for a special type of source, such as manuscripts, archival collections, recordings, and so on, list them separately from the rest of your entries.
■ If it is critical to distinguish primary sources from secondary and tertiary ones, list the entries in separate sections.
If you categorize sources, introduce each separate section with a subheading and, if necessary, a headnote. Order the entries within each section according to the principles given above, and do not list a source in more than one section unless it clearly could be categorized in two or more ways.
By convention, you may omit the following types of sources from a reference list:
■ classical, medieval, and early English literary works (19.5.1) and (in some cases) well-known English-language plays (19.8.5.2)
■ the Bible and other sacred works (19.5.2)
■ well-known reference works, such as major dictionaries and encyclopedias (19.5.3)
■ anonymous unpublished interviews and personal communications (19.6.3), individual blog entries and comments (19.7.2), and postings to social networks (19.7.3) or electronic discussion groups or mailing lists (19.7.4)
■ some sources in the visual and performing arts, including artworks (19.8.1) and live performances (19.8.2)
■ the US Constitution (19.9.5) and some other public documents (19.9)
You may choose to include in your reference list a specific work from one of these categories that is critical to your argument or frequently cited.
Parenthetical citations include enough information for readers to find the full citation in your reference list—usually the author’s name, the date of publication, and (if you are citing a specific passage), a page number or other locating information. The name and date must match those in the relevant reference list entry exactly. (Note that both the elements and the punctuation in parenthetical citations are slightly different from those used in bibliography-style parenthetical notes, which are described in 16.4.3; do not confuse or combine the two styles.)
Whenever you refer to or otherwise use material from a source, you must insert into your text a parenthetical citation with basic identifying information about that source. Normally, the parenthetical citation should be placed at the end of the sentence or clause containing the quotation or other material. But if the author’s name is mentioned in the text, put the rest of the citation (in parentheses) immediately after the author’s name. The closing parenthesis precedes a comma, period, or other punctuation mark when the quotation is run into the text. See also 25.2.
“What on introspection seems to happen immediately and without effort is often a complex symphony of processes that take time to complete” (LeDoux 2003, 116).
While one school claims that “material culture may be the most objective source of information we have concerning America’s past” (Deetz 1996, 259), others disagree.
The color blue became more prominent in the eighteenth century (Pastoureau 2001, 124).
According to Gould (2007, 428), the song “spreads a deadpan Liverpudlian irony over the most clichéd sentiment in all of popular music.”
With a block quotation, however, the parenthetical citation follows the terminal punctuation mark.
He concludes with the following observation:
The new society that I sought to depict and that I wish to judge is only being born. Time has not yet fixed its form; the great revolution that created it still endures, and in what is happening in our day it is almost impossible to discern what will pass away with the revolution itself and what will remain after it. (Tocqueville 2000, 673)
See figure A.11 for a sample page of text with parenthetical citations.
The basic pattern for parenthetical citations is described in 18.1, and templates for several common types of sources appear in figure 18.1. This section covers special elements that may need to be included and special format issues that may arise in parenthetical citations of all types.
In the following situations, treat the name of an editor, translator, or other compiler of a work as you would an author’s name, unless otherwise specified.
18.3.2.1 AUTHORS WITH SAME LAST NAME. If you cite works by more than one author with the same last name, add the author’s first initial to each parenthetical citation, even if the dates are different. If the initials are the same, spell out the first names.
(J. Smith 2011, 140)
(T. Smith 2008, 25–26)
(Howard Bloom 2005, 15)
(Harold Bloom 2010, 270)
18.3.2.2 WORKS WITH SAME AUTHOR AND DATE. If you cite more than one work published in the same year by an author or group of authors named in the same order, arrange the entries alphabetically by title in your reference list and add the letters a, b, c, and so forth to the year (see 18.2.1.1). Use the same designations in your parenthetical citations (letters set in roman type, without an intervening space after the date).
(Davis 2009a, 74)
(Davis 2009b, 59–60)
18.3.2.3 NO AUTHOR. If you cite a book or journal article without an author, use the title in place of the author in your reference list (see 18.2.1). In parenthetical citations, use a shortened title composed of up to four distinctive words from the full title, and print the title in italics or roman as in the reference list.
(Account of Operations 1870–1910)
(“Great Trigonometrical Survey” 1863, 26)
For magazine and newspaper articles without authors, use the title of the magazine or newspaper in place of the author in both locations (see 19.3 and 19.4). For other types of sources, see the relevant section in chapter 19 for guidance; if not stated otherwise, use a shortened title in this position.
18.3.2.4 NO DATE. If you cite a published work without a date, use the designation n.d. (“no date”) in place of the date in both your reference list and parenthetical citations. Use roman type and lowercase letters.
(Smith n.d., 5)
For other types of sources, see the relevant section in chapter 19 for guidance.
18.3.2.5 MORE THAN ONE WORK CITED. If you cite several sources to make a single point, group them into a single parenthetical citation. List them alphabetically, chronologically, or in order of importance (depending on the context), and separate them with semicolons.
Several theorists disagreed strongly with this position (Armstrong and Malacinski 2003; Pickett and White 2009; Beigl 2010).
If you wish to make substantive comments on the text, use footnotes instead of parenthetical citations. See 16.3.2–16.3.4 for note placement, numbering, and format. To cite a source within a footnote, use the normal parenthetical citation form.
N: 10. As Michael Pollan (2007, 374) observed, “We don’t know the most basic things about mushrooms.”