Like Turabian and many other discipline-specific formats, APSA style closely follows the latest edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS). On questions of spelling, hyphenization, and capitalization, APSA defers to the newest edition of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary and to the English-German edition of Wolfgang J. Koschnick’s Standard Dictionary of the Social Sciences for the spelling, hyphenization, and capitalization of social science terms. Like CMS, APSA is primarily concerned with the preparation of journal articles or books to meet the publication standards of the American Political Science Review or the University of Chicago Press, respectively. Kate L. Turabian wrote A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations for the express purpose of transferring the CMS’s guidelines to student papers. The student writer would be wise to use Turabian as a guide while remaining mindful of any differences between APSA and Turabian.
No more than 12 words
At least 11-point font (12 point font is the standard for student papers.)
1.5 inches on all sidesRight margin should not be justified
All parts of the paper should be double-spaced. Each of the following sections should begin on a separate page and sequentially numbered from the title page:
All headings capitalize major words.
Primary headings are centered in bold print.
Secondary headings are flush left and in bold print.
Tertiary headings are flush left, underlined, and end with a period.
Tertiary Heading. Text of the paragraph immediately follows tertiary headings on the same line.
Citations require the last name of the author, year of publication, and sometimes a page number:
(Trish 2005, 13-42)
Page or chapter numbers must appear unless the citation refers to the entire document.
All works cited must appear on the references list.
If the author’s name is used in the text, you may place only the date and page numbers, if needed, in parentheses:
Trish (1988) sharply disagrees.
