Elizabeth Higginbotham 
 
 

When you prepare written papers, it is important that you cite the sources used in your work. There are specific formats for referencing materials. Referencing practices vary by field. Below are the rules for sociology, as employed in the major journals. It is important that you learn to master a reference format. In this course you will be required to cite references to your work, especially in your final report. You can use any style you want, but you must follow all the guidelines. For your information, these sheets should help you master the practices in Sociology by providing the rules and giving you examples. Remember that simply citing the URL for references found on web sites is not sufficient. You need to get the name of the organization and any authors that you can identify. When citing reference materials found in databases, you should use their original journal citations.
 

A. In the text: All source references are to be identified at the appropriate point in the text by the last name of the author, year of publication, and pagination where needed. You only need to provide the page number of a reference in the text if it is a direct quote. Be sure to put direct quotes in quotations marks. Identify subsequent citations of the same source in the same way as the first. Remember to cite all the documents you have used in your reference section. Therefore if you find an article in an anthology that was originally published in a journal, cite the anthology where you found the article. Examples of citations in the text follow:
 

1. If the author's name is in the text, follow it with year of the publication in parentheses. For example: Previous research on single mothers by Kathryn Edin and Laura Lein (1997) and Ruth Sidel (1996) noted the importance of family composition to women's economic vulnerability.
 

2. If the author's name is not in the text, insert the name in parentheses usually at the end of the sentence. Use only the last name and year. For example: Current research indicates that poverty is on the rise especially among teenagers who become mothers (Kaplan 1997; Sidel 1996).
 

3. For direct quotations, you need to include the page number. Pagination should follow the year of publication after a comma. For example: "A significant proportion of emergency food recipients in virtually any pantry is composed of people who are waiting for a food stamp application to be processed" (Poppendieck 1998, p. 71).
 

4. Give both last names for dual authors. For example: (Omi and Winant 1994). Give all last names on the first citation in the text when there are three authors; then use "et al." for subsequent references in the text. For example: In the work of Timmer, Eitzen, and Talley (1994) one finds clear documentation that employment status is related to homelessness. . . . While Timmer et al. (1994) focus on employment, they also recognize other risk factors like family composition, level of educational attainment and access to health care contribute to homelessness."
 

For institutional authorship, supply minimum identification from the beginning of the complete citation. For example: (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2000, p. 117). Note: Most government documents will give you the citation information, so that you will know how to cite these works.
 

5. Separate a series of references with semicolons and enclose them within a single pair of parentheses. For example: Recent scholarship on the Black middle class explores the ways that this population still experiences discrimination (Collins 2000; Feagin and Sikes 1994; Franklin 1991; Hochschild 1995).
 

B. In the appendix or bibliography: List all items alphabetically by author in an appendix titled "REFERENCES." List the first author's last name first, but additional authors are listed first name first. If there are multiple references by the same author then list them each by year of publication. The reference appendix must be complete and include all references in the text. Always double check to make sure you have cited all the works you included in your paper. Please follow these rules.
 

1. The titles of books and journals should be underlined or italicized. The titles of articles or chapters in books should be in quotation marks, but then underline the names of the journals or books in which they appear.
 

2. If there is more than one reference to the same author(s) and year, distinguish them by the letters a, b, and so forth added to the year. [Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1983a.]
 

3. The use of "et al." is not acceptable in the appendix; list the names of all authors using full first names.
 

4. If the cited material is not yet published, but in production, use "forthcoming" instead of a date. "Forthcoming" should be placed where the date general is found. You also need to include either the name of journal or publisher. If a document has never been published, you can simply use "unpublished."
 

What follows are examples of different types of references. Remember that you must list all works in alphabetical order. If you cannot italicize the titles of journal and books, then you can underline them.
 
 
 

Books:

Single Author:

Sharff, Jagna Wojcicka. 1998. King Kong on 4th Street. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
 

U.S. Bureau of the Census. 2000. Characteristics of the Population. Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
 

Two Authors:

Edin, Kathryn and Laura Lein. 1997. Making Ends Meet. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
 

Kushnick, Louis and James Jennings, eds. 1999. A New Introduction to Poverty: The Role of Race, Power and Politics. New York: New York University Press. 
 

Articles in Journals:

Single Author:

Hall, Julia. 2000. "It Hurts to be a Girl." Gender & Society 14:630-643.

[Note: 14 is the volume number, followed by the pages of the article].
 

Two Authors:

Edin, Kathryn and Laura Lein. 1997. "Work, Welfare, and Single Mothers' Economic Strategies." American Sociological Review 62:253-266.
 

Articles in Collections:
 

Single Author:

Polakow, Valerie. 1999. "Savage Distributions: Welfare Myths and Daily Lives." Pp. 241-262 in A New Introduction to Poverty, edited by L. Kushnick and J. Jennings. New York: New York University Press. 

[Note: You only need the first initial of the editors of the collection].
 

Two Authors:

Mickelson, Roslyn Arlin and Stephen Samuel Smith. 1992. "Education and the Struggle Against Race, Class and Gender Inequality." Pp. 359-376 in Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology, edited by Margaret Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
 

Revised 2/2002.