21Sep

How To Write An Essay In AAA Style

Writing An Essay In AAA Style

The American Anthropological (AAA) Documentation Style is related to the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS).

In-Text Guidelines for AAA

Give the author credit in the text in the following ways:

  • Use quotations marks before and after the author’s words in a short quotation. Place quotation citations after the quote.
  • Use the author’s full name in your text whenever possible.  If you do not have this information, cite the author’s last name, either in the sentence introducing the borrowed material or within parentheses at the end of the quotation or paraphrase.
  • Cite the year the document was published within parentheses (after the author’s name if it does not appear in your text). Follow the year with a colon; then note the page(s) on which the original information appears. (Note that there is no space between the colon and the page number(s). 
  • If you are citing reprinted material, type only the date from the version of the work used in your text.
  • If a quotation takes up more than four manuscript lines, cite it as a block quotation. Exclude the quotation marks and use brackets instead of parentheses to enclose the bibliographic information.  The brackets follow the sentence period.

How to Use Tables and Appendices

You must mention tables, graphs, and appendices in your paper at some point in the running text before they are displayed; otherwise, the material is not properly linked. Tables and graphs should not take up more than one-half of a page unless they are especially large, and should never exceed the width of the text on the page. All tables containing information from other sources must include references back to those sources. Tables are placed within the body of the paper unless your professor requires them to be placed after the bibliography page. Appendices are always placed at the end of the paper, after the bibliography page and any tables or graphs.

How to Format a Bibliography Page

Usually the word "bibliography" is used to head an AAA reference page. AAA bibliography entries are significantly different from MLA, APA, or Chicago formats. The authors' names are the only information written on the first line of an AAA bibliography entry. Indent the second line approximately two spaces, and if necessary, indent the third line another two spaces. The date is the first piece of information written on the second line, followed by the name of the book, journal article, or work. If the work comes from a journal, the name of the journal comes after the article title, and is followed by a period, and then the volume number, issue number in parentheses, a colon, and the pages cited. If the work is a book, the second line includes the date, name of the book, publication city, publisher, and pages cited.