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Political Science

This is guide is an introductory guide to Political Science research and resources..

STYLE MANUAL FOR POLITICAL SCIENCE

The APSA (American Political Science Association) Manual remains the standard style guide in the Political Science discipline upon which students, junior faculty members, and well-established scholars authoring manuscripts, as well as editors, copyeditors, and proofreaders, can rely. APSA style, in most instances, follows guidelines set forth in the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (CMS). Throughout this companion website, CMS citation numbers are included in parentheses, when appropriate, to refer readers to specific sections of CMS’s 17th edition.

Other Citation Methods

There are several citations to choose from. APA, MLA or Chicago Style Guide are the most common; however, each discipline (and professor) has a preferred style so it is best to confirm the style expected for your class. 

  • APA (American Psychological Association) style is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition, second printing of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. For more information, please consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, (6th ed., 2nd printing).
  • MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (8th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.
  • The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) covers a variety of topics from manuscript preparation and publication to grammar, usage, and documentation and has been lovingly called the “editors’ bible.” The material in this resource focuses primarily on one of the two CMS documentation styles: the Notes-Bibliography System (NB), which is used by those in literature, history, and the arts. The other documentation style, the Author-Date System, is nearly identical in content but slightly different in form and is preferred in the social/sciences.