How to Cite Sources in APSA Style

APSA citation style is an author-date system: a short parenthetical in your sentence, like (Arena 2014), pointing to a full entry in an alphabetized reference list at the end. The governing document is the American Political Science Association's Style Manual for Political Science, revised 2018 edition, and it is free on the APSA website.

That manual is shorter than you expect, because it does not restate the whole of Chicago. It is built on the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and keys almost every rule to a Chicago paragraph number, then adds the things political science actually needs: government documents, court cases, hearings, treaties, datasets, and ethnographic interviews.

Which edition you are actually following

The manual's cover says Revised 2018 Edition and the copyright page says 2018. It has been touched three times since: July 2020 (capitalization of Black and Indigenous), November 2022 (age-inclusive language), and December 2023 (peer review). None of those revisions changed a citation rule, so a 2018 reference format is still current.

This matters because university library guides disagree with each other in public. Some still describe the current manual as the 2006 edition built on Chicago 15, which was true a decade ago. APSA itself hosts the December 2023 revision of the 2018 manual as a free PDF. If your library guide and the APSA website disagree, the APSA website is the manual.

One consequence of the Chicago 17 lineage is worth knowing before you start. Chicago has since moved to an 18th edition. APSA has not followed it. When you see a rule cited below as 14.106 or 15.27, that is a Chicago 17 paragraph number, and Chicago 18 may number or word it differently.

In-text citations

The parenthetical carries the author's last name and the year, with no comma between them.

(Arena 2014) (Durant n.d.)

When the source has no year, n.d. takes its place. Add a page or chapter number for any quotation, and for anything where a reader would otherwise have to search the whole work: a specific dataset, a particular argument, a number you are relying on. A comma goes after the year, before the locator.

(Jentleson 2015, 12–14) (Fraser 1989, 304, 308)

Nonconsecutive pages are allowed, as the second example shows. Note what is absent: no p., no pp. APSA omits those everywhere except where they are needed to clear up an ambiguity.

How many names to print

Two or three authors get all their names, every time, joined with and rather than an ampersand.

(Dodd and Oppenheimer 1977) (Roberts, Smith, and Haptonstahl 2016)

At four or more authors, the parenthetical collapses to the first author plus et al., in roman type, starting from the very first citation.

(Angel et al. 1986)

There is no "spell it out once, then shorten" step here. The exception is a collision: if two of your sources would both shorten to Angel et al., use the first and second authors' last names before et al., or a shortened title in quotes preceded by a comma.

The reference list uses a completely different threshold, and this is the single most common APSA error. In a reference you do not use et al. at all until there are ten or more authors, and then you list the first seven and follow with et al. (14.76). So a six-author article is (Angel et al. 1986) in your sentence and all six names spelled out in the reference list. The two numbers are four and ten, and they are not a typo.

Several sources at once

Multiple works go inside one set of parentheses, separated by semicolons, alphabetized.

(Hochschild 2015; Jentleson 2015) (Hauck 2000; Hauck and Vogelsong 2005; Jordan et al. 1999, 56–58; Walthall 2012)

For two works by the same author in different years, drop the repeated name.

(Barbarosa 1973; 1978) (Barbarosa 1973, 18; 1978, 32)

Two works by the same author in the same year take lowercase letters on the year. Decide which is a and which is b by alphabetizing their titles (15.20), not by which you cite first.

(Frankly 1957a, 1957b)

And when two different authors share a last name, add first initials to tell them apart.

(B. Ripley 1988; R. Ripley 1964)

Where the parenthetical sits

No comma separates the citation from the sentence, and it normally lands at the end of the sentence, inside the final punctuation. With a quotation it follows the closing quotation mark and still precedes the period. Block quotes are the exception: there the citation comes after the end punctuation (15.26).

When you name the author in your own prose, the year follows immediately in parentheses, even if the name is possessive (15.25).

For a lucid assessment, see Ripley (2008).

>

Trish (1988) sharply disagrees.

A few more tools. Use vol., para., chap., or sec. in roman when a page number is not the useful locator: (Rex et al. 1985, chaps. 6, 7). Add a clarifying comment after a semicolon (15.24). Use brackets when the citation is already inside parentheses (15.28). If you cite the same source several times in one paragraph, later references need only the page number (15.27). And for see, see also, or compare, keep it embedded rather than pushing it into an endnote: (Confucius 1951; see also Gurdjieff 1950 and Wanisaburo).

Organizations get a short form declared on first use and used thereafter:

US International Trade Commission (1978, 12; hereafter USITC), then (USITC 1978, 16).

Reprints carry both dates, the original in brackets: (Marx and Engels [1933] 1964, 25).

Building the reference list

Each part of a reference is separated by a period. The first author's name is inverted; every other name is not, and the last one is preceded by and, never &. Give names as the source gives them, in the source's order, and prefer the fuller form with first names and middle initials where you need it to identify someone.

Entries are alphabetized letter by letter (14.65). A single-authored work comes before multiauthored works starting with the same last name (14.66). Several works by one author run chronologically, single-authored first, then the multiauthored ones (15.16). Where there is no author to alphabetize by, fall back in this order: year, editor's name, title, descriptive phrase (14.62), ignoring an initial article. Undated and forthcoming works come after everything dated (15.18).

Two habits carried over from older styles are now explicitly out. Do not use ibid., idem, f., ff., op. cit., or loc. cit. (14.34 to 14.36). Do not replace a repeated author's name with three em dashes; Chicago stopped recommending it because it breaks digitization and database sorting (14.67). Repeat the name.

On formatting, the manual asks only that each entry start on a new line and that runover lines be indented with your word processor's indentation feature rather than the tab key (2.24).

Titles, dates, numbers, and links

Titles take headline-style capitalization. Words printed in full capitals get converted to upper and lowercase, ampersands may become and, and any punctuation between title and subtitle that is not a colon, question mark, or exclamation point becomes a colon (14.88). Non-English titles keep their sentence-style capitalization (14.98), and an English translation follows in brackets, in roman, sentence-style (14.99).

Miyamoto, Yoshio. 1942. Hoso to kokka [Broadcasting and the national defense state]. Tokyo: Nihon Hoso Shuppan Kyokai.

Use Arabic numerals, give inclusive page ranges (14.148), and put a colon and a space between a volume number and its pages (14.152). Where an ebook reflows and has no stable pagination, cite a chapter number or a section heading (14.160).

For links, APSA has a preference order: the DOI first, then a permalink, then a shortened URL. A DOI is given as doi: followed by only the numerals and slashes that come after .org/.

doi: 10.1017/S1049096517002505

An access date is required only when you cannot determine a publication or revision date from the source (14.12). A dated page gets no access date. The manual adds that recording them anyway "does not hurt," so an instructor who asks for them is within the style.

Worked examples

Every reference below is an example from the APSA manual itself.

1. A book

Levi, Margaret. 1988. Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley: University of California Press.

In-text: (Levi 1988), or with a locator, (Levi 1988, 24).

Publication information runs place, colon, publisher (14.127). If the title page lists several cities, use only the first (14.129). Drop The, Inc., Co., Press, and Publisher from the publisher's name, except in university presses, where Press stays: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. When the state is already inside the press's name, leave it out of the place.

2. A book in a later edition

Davidson, Roger H., Walter J. Oleszek, Frances E. Lee, and Eric Schickler. 2016. Congress and Its Members, 14th edition. Washington, DC: CQ Press.

The edition follows the title after a comma and stays in roman even though the title around it is italic (14.113). Four authors here, so the parenthetical is (Davidson et al. 2016) while the reference keeps all four names.

3. A chapter in an edited book

Halchin, L. Elaine. 2001. "And This Parent Went to Market: Education as Public Versus Private Good." In School Choice in the Real World, eds. Robert Maranto, Scott Milliman, Frederick Hess and April Gresham, 39–57. Boulder, CO: Westview.

The chapter title goes in quotation marks, then In, then the italic book title, then the editors, then the chapter's page range preceded by a comma (14.106). The manual also permits a page-free variant using the chapter number in front of in:

Halchin, L. Elaine. 2001. "And This Parent Went to Market: Education as Public Versus Private Good." Chap. 1 in School Choice in the Real World, eds. Robert Maranto, Scott Milliman, Frederick Hess and April Gresham. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Our APSA book chapter guide works through editors, editions, and ebook chapters in more detail.

4. A chapter where the editor sits after the title

Hermann, Margaret G. 1984. "Personality and Foreign Policy Decision Making: A Study of Fifty-Three Heads of Government." In Foreign Policy Decision Making, eds. Donald A. Sylvan and Steve Chan, 133–52. New York: Praeger.

When an editor or translator appears alongside an author, the editor's name goes after the title, preceded by a comma rather than a period, and is not inverted (14.104). The page range 133–52 shows APSA's compressed ranges: repeat only the digits that change.

5. A journal article

Aldrich, John H. 1980. "A Dynamic Model of Presidential Nomination Campaigns." American Political Science Review 74 (3): 651–69.

In is not used with periodicals. The volume follows the italic journal title in roman with no punctuation between them, the issue number goes in parentheses, then a colon, a space, and the page range (14.171). If there is no issue number, a month or season can sit in the parentheses instead. Full journal names are given, minus a leading the (14.170). The APSA journal article guide covers DOIs, forthcoming articles, and special issues.

6. A book review in a journal

Chambers, Simone. 2018. "Against Democracy. By Jason Brennan." Review of Against Democracy, Jason Brennan. Perspectives on Politics 16 (2): 503–5. doi: 10.1017/S153759271800066X.

The review's own title goes in the title slot, then Review of, the reviewed work, and its author.

7. A newspaper or magazine article

Prufer, Olaf. 1964. "The Hopewell Cult." Scientific American, December 13–15.

Page numbers are rarely needed for newspapers and magazines (14.188). The month and day replace the volume, issue, and page numbers. A regular column keeps headline capitalization but takes no quotation marks (14.190), and an ambiguous newspaper title can carry a city in parentheses (14.193).

8. A blog post

Sides, John. 2008. "Who Will Win the Nominations?" The Monkey Cage [blog], January 3. http://themonkeycage.org/2008/01/who_will_win_the_nominations/.

Blog posts follow the online newspaper pattern with [blog] added in brackets after the blog's title (14.208). For a news website, include the article's time stamp when it is available, because news stories get updated (14.191). Email lists and forums count as social media, so use screennames. Our APSA website guide covers pages with no author and the access-date rule in full.

9. A dissertation or thesis

Munger, Frank J. 1955. "Two-Party Politics in the State of Indiana." PhD diss. Harvard University.

Theses are treated like books except that the title goes in quotation marks instead of italics, and PhD diss. (or Master's thesis.) follows it (14.215).

10. A conference paper

Mefford, Dwain, and Brian Ripley. 1987. "The Cognitive Foundation of Regime Theory." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.

Lectures and presentations use presented at followed by the location information (14.217).

11. A dataset

Eldersveld, Samuel J., John E. Jackson, M. Kent Jennings, Kenneth Lieberthal, Melanie Manion, Michael Oksenberg, Zhefu Chen, Hefeng He, Mingming Shen, Qingkui Xie, Ming Yang, and Fengchun Yang. 1996. Four-County Study of Chinese Local Government and Political Economy, 1990 [computer file] (Study #6805). ICPSR version. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan/Beijing, China: Beijing University [producers], 1994. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1996.

Start from the citation the archive gives you and adapt it: move the year into author-date position, put a study number in parentheses after the title, and use the distribution date as the publication date. Twelve authors here, which is why this one does use et al. territory in the parenthetical, (Eldersveld et al. 1996), while the reference under the ten-author rule would list the first seven and then et al.

Statistical analysis packages are handled differently. Name the package in your text and attribute it to its creator in an explanatory note rather than giving it a reference entry.

12. The APSA manual itself

American Political Science Association. 2018. Style Manual for Political Science. Rev. ed. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association. https://connect.apsanet.org/stylemanual/.

In-text: (American Political Science Association 2018), or declare a short form and use (APSA 2018).

An organization that publishes its own work is listed as the author even though it is also the publisher (14.84). If you abbreviate the organization's name in a reference, the full name has to follow in parentheses on the first entry (15.27).

Legal and public documents

This is the part of APSA that surprises people coming from APA or MLA, and it is the reason the discipline needed its own manual at all.

Legal and public documents do not go in the reference list (14.271). Work the citation into your sentence where you can. Where the sentence will not carry it, use an endnote or a standalone parenthetical. For heavy legal work, APSA tells you to supplement its rules with The Bluebook.

A second surprise: the formatting rules here do not follow the rest of the manual (14.274). Abbreviations take periods or apostrophes, common abbreviations are capitalized (No., Sess.), and ordinals are written 2d and 3d rather than 2nd and 3rd.

Cases. In a citation the case name is set in roman; in running text any version of it is italicized (14.276). After the name comes the volume, the abbreviated reporter, the opening page, the page actually cited, and then the court and year in parentheses. Supreme Court decisions cite to United States Reports (U.S.), or to the Supreme Court Reporter (S. Ct.) if not yet published there, and may drop the court name from the parentheses (14.277).

Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015). Eaton v. IBM Corp., 925 F. Supp. 487 (S.D. Tex. 1996).

A parenthetical in your text is simpler: the case name and the year, italicized except for the v., as in (Baker v. Carr 1962).

Statutes, bills, and the rest. A few patterns from the manual:

U.S. Const. art. I, § 4, cl. 2. Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107–296, 116 Stat. 2135 (2012). Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, H.R. 1599, 114th Cong. (2015). 112 Cong. Rec. 16 (1996). Wis. Stat. § 36.09(3) 2015. Proclamation No. 5142, 49 Fed. Reg. 341 (1984).

Constitutions use roman numerals for articles and amendments and Arabic for subdivisions (14.280). Public laws carry the Congress number joined to the document number by a hyphen. House and Senate documents use H.R. Rep., H.R. Doc., S. Rep., and S. Doc. Hearings take the full hearing title in italics, with the speaker's name, title, and affiliation in parentheses at the end.

If your work leans on legal sources, our Bluebook style guide is the deeper reference APSA is pointing you toward.

Interviews and fieldwork

Political science generates sources that other disciplines do not, and APSA splits them in two.

A published interview is treated as a periodical: the interviewee is the author, and interviewed by plus the interviewer's name follows the title. If you conducted it for the manuscript, write interviewed by the author to preserve anonymity during review.

Research interviews and ethnographic data do not go in the reference list. Cite them in the text or in an endnote, giving the interviewee, any date, the interviewer, and the location.

Respondent 32. 2008. Interviewed by Author. New York City.

Classical Greek and Latin works, encyclopedias, and dictionaries are also kept out of the reference list and run into the text or endnotes instead (14.232, 14.242). A modern edition you cite by page number does belong in the list (14.251).

Notes themselves are meant to be thin in APSA. They carry short substantive material or cross-references. Sources belong in the reference list, and the only exceptions are the three cases above: unpublished interviews, ethnographic data, and legal and public documents.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

• Using et al. in the reference list at four authors. The parenthetical threshold is four; the reference threshold is ten. Spell out every name up to nine, then list the first seven and add et al.
• Turning the DOI into a URL. Zotero, Mendeley, and current Chicago all produce https://doi.org/10.1017/.... APSA wants doi: 10.1017/.... One find-and-replace fixes a whole list.
• Writing the issue number as Chicago 17 does. Chicago writes 74, no. 3: 651–69; APSA parenthesizes it as 74 (3): 651–69. That parenthesis and the doi: prefix are the two visible signs of a correctly formatted APSA reference.
• Putting a court case in the reference list. It does not go there. Neither does a statute, a hearing, a research interview, or a dictionary entry.
• Adding an access date to every web source. Since the 2018 revision, an access date belongs only where the page shows no publication or revision date. Library guides still teaching the old "(accessed ...)" tail are working from the earlier manual.
• Sentence-case article titles. APSA capitalizes headline-style, even when the journal printed the title in sentence case. A list converted from APA is usually wrong on this and on the ampersand.
• Using three em dashes for a repeated author. Retired. Repeat the name.

APSA and Chicago author-date: what actually differs

APSA is a dialect of Chicago author-date, which is why librarians tell political science students to pick Chicago when their software has no APSA option. The differences that survive:

Our guide to Chicago author-date style covers the parent system, though it follows the current 18th edition while APSA remains keyed to the 17th.

Quick-reference table