Introduction
The Author-Date citation system is primarily used by those in the physical, natural, and social sciences. Instead of using notes, sources are cited directly in the text, in parentheses, by the author’s last name, publication date, and page number(s), if necessary. A full citation for the source will also appear in the Bibliography page.
When using the Author-Date reference style, all bibliographic sources will have the year of publication listed directly after the author’s name. Doing so makes it easier to follow a text citation to the correct full source. This is particularly useful when identifying multiple citations from the same author.
Author-Date Basic Structure
(authors last name(s) year of publication, page numbers)
Note: if you use the author(s) last name in your sentence then only include the publication year and page numbers in parentheses
Here is a usage example of the author-date citation and subsequent complete citation in the reference list, taken from the Chicago Manual. I have bolded the author-date citations:
In-Text Author-Date Reference
As legal observers point out, much dispute resolution transpires outside the courtroom but in the “shadow of the law” (Mnookin and Kornhauser 1979, 953-57)…. Here we empirically demonstrate that workers’ and regulatory agents’ understandings of discrimination and legality emerge not only in the shadow of the law but also, as Albiston (2005, 25-9) suggests, in the “shadow of organizations.”
Matching Reference (Bibliography) List Entries
Albiston, Catherine R. 2005. “Bargaining in the Shadow of Social Institutions: Competing Discourses and Social Change in the Workplace Mobilization of Civil Rights.” Law and Society Review 39 (1): 11-47.
Mnookin, Robert, and Lewis Kornhauser. 1979. “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: The Case of Divorce.” Yale Law Journal 88 (5): 950-97.
Remember, in Author-Date citation style, the year of publication always comes after the author(s) in the bibliography, instead of at/near the end of the citation in footnote/endnote style. See the Bibliography section for more information.
Examples
Bibliographic Entry
Borel, Brooke. 2016. The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ProQuest Ebrary.
Grazer, Brian, and Charles Fishman. 2015. A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Smith, Zadie. 2016. Swing Time. New York: Penguin Press.
In-text Citation
(Borel 2016, 92)
(Grazer and Fishman 2015, 12)
(Smith 2016, 315–16)
Bibliographic Entry
Keng, Shao-Hsun, Chun-Hung Lin, and Peter F. Orazem. 2017. “Expanding College Access in Taiwan, 1978–2014: Effects on Graduate Quality and Income Inequality.” Journal of Human Capital 11, no. 1 (Spring): 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1086/690235.
LaSalle, Peter. 2017. “Conundrum: A Story about Reading.” New England Review 38 (1): 95–109. Project MUSE.
In-text Citation
(Keng, Lin, and Orazem 2017, 9–10)
(LaSalle 2017, 95)
Bibliographic Entry
Manjoo, Farhad. 2017. “Snap Makes a Bet on the Cultural Supremacy of the Camera.” New York Times, March 8, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/08/technology/snap-makes-a-bet-on-the-cultural-supremacy-of-the-camera.html.
Mead, Rebecca. 2017. “The Prophet of Dystopia.” New Yorker, April 17, 2017.
Pai, Tanya. 2017. “The Squishy, Sugary History of Peeps.” Vox, April 11, 2017. http://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/11/15209084/peeps-easter.
In-text Citation
(Manjoo 2017)
(Mead 2017, 43)
(Pai 2017)
Bibliographic Entry
Stamper, Kory. 2017. “From ‘F-Bomb’ to ‘Photobomb,’ How the Dictionary Keeps Up with English.” Interview by Terry Gross. Fresh Air, NPR, April 19, 2017. Audio, 35:25. http://www.npr.org/2017/04/19/524618639/from-f-bomb-to-photobomb-how-the-dictionary-keeps-up-with-english.
In-Text Citation
*(Sam Gomez, Facebook message to author, August 1, 2017)
(Stamper 2017)
*Personal communications, including email and text messages and direct messages sent through social media, are usually cited in the text only; they are rarely included in a reference list
Bibliographic Entry
Google. 2017. “Privacy Policy.” Privacy & Terms. Last modified April 17, 2017. https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
Yale University. n.d. “About Yale: Yale Facts.” Accessed May 1, 2017. https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts.
In-text Citation
(Google 2017)
(Yale University, n.d.)
Bibliographic Entry
AnswersTV.com. (2008, March 4). Diabetes overview. Retrieved from http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTgBvJsHcCk
Thibodeau, L. (Producer), & Grupp, E. (Director). (2010). Lippincott's video guide to psychiatric mental health nursing assessment [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Wolters/Lippincott.
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. (Producer). (2009, March 16). A need to know [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://aids.gov/podcast/podcast-gallery/#/need_to_know_podcast_play/
In-text Citation
(AnswersTV.com, 2008)
(Thibodeau & Grupp, 2010)
(U. S. Department of Health and Human Services (2009)