General

• Term papers should be printed legibly (12-point, 1.5 lines). It is essential to pay attention to sufficient stapling and proofreading margins; the following margins are usual: top - 2.5, bottom - 2, left - 3-4, right - 2.5.
• The cover sheet should contain the following information: University, type and subject of the course, name of the instructor, subject of the paper, name and email address of the author, semester of study and field of study.
• At the beginning of each paper, a table of contents (heading: Contents) should be included, listing all chapters and subchapters with the corresponding page numbers. The information in the table of contents must correspond to the chapter headings.
• Emphasis in the text should be italicized (capitals, small caps, and blocking should not be used in the text).
• Notes should be indicated by superscript numerals without parentheses. The annotation numeral is placed outside the sentence.[1] Annotations should be used for substantive additions (i.e., not for references), used sparingly, and placed as footnotes (not endnotes). Print annotation figure and notes in 10- or 11-point.
• Notes and bibliography are single-spaced.
• Tables and figures are numbered consecutively.

Citation methods in the text

• References should be incorporated into the text by bracket references to the bibliography (first names are not used here). In the parenthesis references, a semicolon is placed between different authors, and a comma in case of multiple citations of the same author (see examples).
• Quotations are indicated by quotation marks. Omissions and own comments are indicated by square brackets [...].
• Quotations longer than two lines are indented and written single-spaced.
• The reference "ibid." (abbreviation for ibid.) is to be used only if a direct reference to the previously mentioned work is possible.
• If the year of publication is missing in a work, it is replaced by "o. J." (without year).
• If the author's name already appears in the text: Giddens (1990) ...
• Otherwise: (Giddens 1990: 120), (Durkheim 1988: 41f.; Giddens 1984a: 120ff.; Weber 1956: 20-25), (Giddens 1984b, 1990; Parsons 1969).
• In two authors: (Münch/Smelser 1992: 11)
• With more than two authors: (Zapf et al. 1990)

Bibliography

The bibliography is at the end of the paper. It contains all works listed in the text, arranged alphabetically according to the authors' last names - regardless of the type of literature (monograph, essay, Internet source, etc.).

Works not referenced in the paper are not listed (even if read). Bibliographic references should be in the following order: Author [surname, first name], Year of publication (first publication year): title. Place of publication: publisher.

All authors are named in the bibliography, so do not use "et al.". For articles in journals, the name of the journal and the year as well as the page numbers must always be given.

Examples

Books

Coleman, James S. 1990: Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA, und London: The Belknap Press. (Dt.: Grundlagen der Sozialtheorie. 3 Bde. München: Oldenbourg 1991-1992)

Lindner, Rolf 1990: Die Entdeckung der Stadtkultur. Soziologie aus der Erfahrung der Reportage. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp

Pirker, Theo, M. Rainer Lepsius, Rainer Weinert und Hans-Hermann Hertle 1995: Der Plan als Befehl und Fiktion. Wirtschaftsführung in der DDR. Gespräche und Analysen. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag

Simmel, Georg 1989 (1900): Philosophie des Geldes. Gesamtausgabe Bd. 6. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp

Journal articles

Häußermann, Hartmut, und Manfred Küchler 1993: Wohnen und Wählen. Zum Einfluß von Hauseigentum auf die Wahlentscheidung. In: Zeitschrift für Soziologie 22: 16-32

Portes, Alejandro, und Julia Sensenbrenner 1993: Embeddedness and Immigration: Notes on the Social Determinants of Economic Action. In: American Journal of Sociology 98: 1320-1350

Windolf, Paul, und Jürgen Beyer 1995: Kooperativer Kapitalismus. Unternehmensverflech­tungen im internationalen Vergleich. In: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozial­psychologie 47: 1-36

Articles from edited volumes

Merton, Robert K. 1995 (1949): Sozialstruktur und Anomie. In: Ders. (Hg.): Soziologische Theorie und soziale Struktur. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 115-154

Sinnott, Richard 1995: Bringing Public Opinion Back. In: Niedermayer, Oskar, und Max Kaase (Hg.): Public Opinion and International Governance. Beliefs in Government Vol. 2. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 11-32

Wu, Weiping, und Shahid Yusuf 2003: Shanghai: remaking China’s future global city. In: Gugler, Josef (Hg.) 2004: World Cities beyond the West. Globalization, Development and Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 27-58

Internet sources

Difu 2000: Modellgebiete zur "Sozialen Stadt" und Programmbegleitung vor Ort. In: Soziale Stadt – Info 1. www.sozialestadt.de/veroeffentlichungen/newsletter/info1.pdf [Datum des Zugriffs]

The method of citation described above shows one way of dealing with literature references in social science papers. You can, but do not have to follow it, i.e. you can also choose another form, but this must be common in the social sciences and systematically averted. Helpful here are the conventions for citation, which can be found on the websites of social science journals.