How to format your references using the American Journal of Sociology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for American Journal of Sociology (AJS). For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Macilwain, Colin. 2006. “Market Watch.” Nature 444 (7121): 805.

A journal article with 2 authors

Koester, Helmut J., and Daniel Johnston. 2005. “Target Cell-Dependent Normalization of Transmitter Release at Neocortical Synapses.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 308 (5723): 863–66.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tsushima, Yoshiaki, Yuka Sasaki, and Takeo Watanabe. 2006. “Greater Disruption Due to Failure of Inhibitory Control on an Ambiguous Distractor.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 314 (5806): 1786–88.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Foukas, Lazaros C., Marc Claret, Wayne Pearce, Klaus Okkenhaug, Stephen Meek, Emma Peskett, Sara Sancho, Andrew J. H. Smith, Dominic J. Withers, and Bart Vanhaesebroeck. 2006. “Critical Role for the P110alpha Phosphoinositide-3-OH Kinase in Growth and Metabolic Regulation.” Nature 441 (7091): 366–70.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Burnham, Douglas, and Ole Martin Skilleås. 2012. The Aesthetics of Wine. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Ortiz, Ángel, Rubén Darío Franco, and Pedro Gómez Gasquet, eds. 2010. Balanced Automation Systems for Future Manufacturing Networks: 9th IFIP WG 5.5 International Conference, BASYS 2010, Valencia, Spain, July 21-23, 2010. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Bhidayasiri, Roongroj, and Daniel Tarsy. 2012. “Parkinson’s Disease: Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesia.” Pp. 10–11 in Movement Disorders: A Video Atlas: A Video Atlas, edited by Daniel Tarsy. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for American Journal of Sociology.

Blog post

Davis, Josh. 2017, May 18. “State Of The World’s Plants Report Highlights 28,000 Species With Medicinal Properties”IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/state-of-the-worlds-plants-report-highlights-28000-species-with-medicinal-properties/. Accessed on October 30, 2018.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office. 1999. Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Costs and Planned Use of Emergency Funds. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

McNeil, Joy Nicole. 2017. “‘I Noticed Something Wrong’: Lived Experiences of Women of Color Who Faced a Protracted Journey to Diagnosis with Lupus.” Doctoral dissertation. Minneapolis, MN: Capella University.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Shpigel, Ben. 2017, September 11. “Rookies Impressed in N.F.L.’s Week 1. Don’t Get Too Excited.” New York Times B11.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Macilwain 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Koester and Johnston 2005; Macilwain 2006).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Koester and Johnston 2005)
Three or more authors: (Foukas et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	American Journal of Sociology
ISSN (print)	0002-9602
ISSN (online)	1537-5390
Scope