Notes to accompany APSA Style Manual

written by SIUE students of POLS 350 Fall 2004

Information is taken directly from the Style Manual for Political Science, Revised 2001. Copyright

2001 by the American Political Science Association.

For more details, refer directly to the manual.

 

I. SUBSTANCE

                A.            I or We?

                                - individuals should refer to themselves as “I”.

                                - use “we” only for joint authors/researchers.

                                                e.g. I have found… or Through my research….

                B.            Do not use contractions.  (e.g. don’t, can’t etc)

                C.            Use gender neutral language.

                D.            Headings and subheadings

 

Bold Centered Primary Heading

 

Bold Secondary Heading Left Justified

 

Tertiary Heading Underlined.  Text follows immediately.

 

II. CITATIONS (citing your work within  the text of your paper).

                NOTE:  Citations must begin exactly as they begin in the References,  e.g. with the author’s name or the title of the work, so that they may be cross-referenced easily in the alphabetized list of References).

 

-The most common citation consists of the author’s name, year of publication, and the page number:

 

                e.g.          Governments must have majority support in both houses to remain in

                                power (Katz 1993, 125-29).

 

- Less than four authors, all authors should be listed:

 

                e.g.          It also results in a multi-party system with two party alliances and three

                                major parties (Banks and Muller 1998, 121-25).

 

- With four or more authors, et al should follow the first author’s name:

 

                e.g.          (Angel et al. 1986, 36-45).

 

- Page numbers are always necessary UNLESS you are referring to the work as a whole, i.e. to a theme or finding that runs throughout the work.  Never use information from a specific page of a book, article, web site etc. without citing the page number.

 

- If you are referring to the work as a whole, no page number is necessary:

 

                Almond and Verba reexamined political culture in a second study, The Civic

                Culture Revisited (1989).

 

                Several works have examined the role of the economy in the democratic

                process (Ehlers 2001, Jensen 2003, Oehmke 1998, and Robinson 2004).

 

- Electronic sources, including articles from web sites, should be formatted to be as similar to normal article or book citations as possible.  Citations should include the names of the author or authors and year of publication if available.  Page numbers should be used if possible.  Never put the web address in the citation within the text of your paper; put that in the References. 

 

- If you cite the 2004 Nations in Transit report for a country (such as Poland), give the name of the author, the year, and the page number.  The rest of the information such as the URL (address) can be given in the References:

 

                Poland is now a member of the European Union (Keat 2004, 3).

 

III. REFERENCES  (This is the bibliography at the end of the text.)

The citations you used in the text will direct the reader’s attention to the References which provide complete source information.  List all references alphabetically by author’s last name.  Give the full first name instead of an initial, unless the author is widely known by initials.  Double space all lines and indent all lines after the first in each entry.  When citing several works by the same author, place them in chronological order, with the earliest publication first, repeating the name of the author with each new entry.

 

The normal order is:

               

                Lastname, Firstname. Year. Title. Place of Publication: Publisher.

 

Example (for a book):

 

                Gallagher, Michael. 1985. Political Parties in the Republic of Ireland.    

                                Manchester: Manchester University Press.

 

Multiple author example:

               

                Smith, Tom Q., Bobby Chobby, and Vincent Vega. 2002.  Ireland:  More than

                                Just Potatoes.  London:  Big Ben Press.

 

Chapter in Multiauthor (edited) collection (author of chapter and editor of book may or may not be the same):

 

                Crotty, William J. 1968.  “The Party Organization and Its Activists.”  In                                                                   Approaches to the Study of Party Organization, ed. William J.

                                Crotty.  Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

 

World Wide Web Sites

For a website, maintain the same order.  Resist the urge to start with the address or the page name.  Start with the author.  If the author is not available, start with the title of the article.  For the 2004 Nations in Transit Poland report (as seen above in the citations), your reference should be:

 

                Keat, Preston.  2004. “Poland.”  Nations in Transit 2004.  Freedom House.

                                http://www.freedomhouse.org/research/nitransit/2004/poland2004.pdf

 

 

You can include the date last accessed or last updated if necessary.

 

                Authorlastname, Authorfirstname.  Year. “Website Article.”  Date Last Updated.

                                Website (Date, Year Accessed).

 

                Vega, Vincent. 2004. “Elections” in Ireland.” September 15, 2004. 

                                http://www.electionworld.org/Ireland.htm (September 25, 2004).

               

Newspaper articles:

Give the author’s name (unless anonymous) then put the title of the article, section and page number.

 

Journal Articles:

                Aldrich, John H. 1980.  “A Dynamic Model of Presidential Nomination Campaigns.”  American Political Science Review 74 (September) 651-69.