Documentation
The Urban Institute uses parenthetical author-date citations and a corresponding reference list in research publications. Each entry in the reference list is mentioned in the text, and all works cited in the text should appear in the reference list. Works not cited in the text may appear in a list of additional readings, but they should not be included in the formal reference list.
Notes versus Reference Lists: Which Sources Go Where?
Notes: blog posts, legal citations, magazine articles (print or online), newspaper articles (print or online), personal communications (e.g., e-mails, interviews), press releases, web pages and other website content, and other informally published work (i.e., work without an easily identifiable author, publication date, city of publication, or publisher).
Reference lists: books, chapters in books, dissertations/theses, journal articles, papers or presentations from meetings, PDFs posted on websites, research briefs and papers, testimonies, and working papers.
Note: In the interest of shorter reference lists, URLs for PDFs posted on websites may be embedded inside the publication title in reference list rather than provided in full at the end of the citation.
Author-Date Citations and Reference Lists
The primary reference guide for Urban Institute publications is the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition (2017), figure 15.1, with some variations.
Author-Date Citations in the Text
- References are cited in the text by the author-date style, with no comma between author and date: (Buckley and Mayo 1987).
- If available, page numbers or other locators should be included in the parenthetical citation, not the reference list entry: (Hou and Smith 2006, 28; Johnson and Gosselin 2018, figure 1).
- For references with four or more authors, use the name of the first author and then et al. However, if two references would shorten to the same form by using et al. (e.g., Haring, Bricker, White, and Jackson 1980 and Haring, Liberty, White, and Bricker 1980 would both become Haring et al. 1980), use as many authors’ names as necessary to make citation clear, followed by et al. (e.g., the above would be, respectively, Haring, Bricker, et al. 1980 and Haring, Liberty, et al. 1980). The reference list should provide all authors’ names.
- All references cited in the text should agree with the information in the reference list. Check to make sure there are no spelling, date, or pagination inconsistencies.
- Government agencies, organizations, or corporations as authors: For the sake of shorter parenthetical citations, an abbreviation may be used as the author in place of the full organization name (e.g., NFHA 2012). In such cases, the reference entry is alphabetized under that abbreviation, not the spelled-out name: NFHA (National Fair Housing Alliance). 2012.
- If there is no author, use the first few words of the entry as it appears in the reference list; usually this logical unit is a title (e.g., “Development of the Housing Sector in Hungary” 1990; or Economic Times 1990).
- When more than one reference is cited in the text parenthetically, arrange the citations in the order corresponding to that in the reference list (i.e., alphabetically by surname, chronologically within references by one author, earliest work first).
- For citations in which the same senior author appears in various works as a solo author and a coauthor, the single-author cites come first chronologically, earliest work first, followed by multiple-author cites. The two- and three-author cites should be arranged alphabetically following the first author in each cite, with each cite separated by a semicolon (e.g., Liberty 1987, 1990; Liberty and Haring 1989; Liberty, Haring, and White 1990; Liberty, White, and Bricker 1988).
- For works by the same author or authors published in the same year, use a, b, c, and so on, immediately after the year in the author-date citation to distinguish the references (e.g., Struyk and Ravicz 1992a).
Reference Lists
Reference lists should be arranged according to the following guidelines:
- Alphabetize by surname of first author.
- For works by the same author, follow these criteria:
- Date of publication, with earlier work placed first
- Surname of second author (or third, if second authors are the same, etc.).
- Use three em dashes followed by a period (———.) in place of author(s) in reference list to indicate successive cites by the same author(s). Do not use the rule if only some authors are repeated or if new authors are added to the repeated ones.
- Provide first and last names for all authors and editors.
Reference Styles for Urban Products
Blog Posts (cite in notes, not reference list)
- Erica Greenberg, “The political future of public preschool,” Urban Wire (blog), Urban Institute, October 27, 2015, http://www.urban.org/urban-wire/political-future-public-preschool.
Policy Debates (cite in notes, not reference list)
The entire debate:
- Teresa Derrick-Mills, Karon Rosa, Vanessa Freytag, Ricardo Estrada, Linda Chappel, and Tonya Williams, “Bridging the Gap between Child Care and Workforce Development,” Urban Institute, February 8–10, 2016, http://www.urban.org/debates/bridging-gap-between-child-care-and-workforce-development.
One post in the debate:
- Karon Rosa to “Bridging the Gap between Child Care and Workforce Development,” Urban Institute, February 8, 2016, 4:57 p.m., http://www.urban.org/debates/bridging-gap-between-child-care-and-workforce-development.
Research Briefs and Informal or Working Papers
Rueben, Kim, Sarah Gault, and Sandy Baum. 2016. “Strengthening Federal Student Aid: A Closer Look at Pell Formulas with Two Inputs.” Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
Research Reports
Koulish, Jeremy. 2015. From Camps to Campaign Funds: The History, Anatomy, and Activities of 501(c)(4) Organizations. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
Website Data Visualizations, Features, and Interactives (cite in notes, not reference list)
- Julia Gelatt, Devlin Hanson, and Heather Koball, “How Immigrants Are Reshaping Residential Segregation,” Urban Institute, July 2015, http://datatools.urban.org/features/ncdb/immigrants-reshaping-residential-segregation/index.html.
Reference Styles for non-Urban Products
Books
A standard reference entry for a book should contain the following information:
Author, First, Second Author, and Third Author. Year of Publication. Book Title Italicized. City of Publication, STATE (two-letter) or COUNTRY (three-letter) abbreviation: Publisher.
If the city of publication is a major US city (e.g., Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City) or a major international city or capital (London, Paris, Tokyo, etc., as well as Sydney and Geneva), the state or country abbreviation may be omitted. This is also true if the publisher’s name contains the state (Albany: State University of New York Press).
Additional information (editor or editors, page numbers, edition, etc.) should be supplied as needed. See examples below.
Single author: Burman, Leonard E. 1999. The Labyrinth of Capital Gains Tax Policy: A Guide for the Perplexed. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Multiple authors: Burman, Leonard E., and Joel Slemrod. 2012. Taxes in America: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press.
Editor(s) in place of author: Peters, H. Elizabeth, and Clair Kamp Dush, eds. 2009. Marriage and Family: Perspectives and Complexities. New York: Columbia University Press.
Chapter in an edited book: Boris, Elizabeth T., and C. Eugene Steuerle. 2006. “Scope and Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector.” In The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, 2nd ed., edited by Walter W. Powell and Richard Steinberg, 66–88. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Urban Institute Press book: Cordes, Joseph J., and C. Eugene Steuerle. 2008. Nonprofits and Business. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
One volume in multivolume work: Fryer, Roland G., Jr. 2011. “Racial Inequality in the 21st Century: The Declining Significance of Discrimination.” In Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 4, edited by Orley Ashenfelter and David Card, 855–972. New York: North Holland.
Numbered edition: Halpern, Diane F. 2012. Sex Differences in Cognitive Abilities. 4th ed. New York: Psychology Press.
Reports, Papers, and Briefs
Report: Finn, Peter. 2001. Citizen Review of Police: Approaches and Implementation. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
Report (with abbreviated in-text citation): CBO (Congressional Budget Office). 2013. Rising Demand for Long-Term Services and Supports for Elderly People. Washington, DC: CBO.
Report (with a report number): Bracmort, Kelsi. 2013. Wildfire Management: Federal Funding and Related Statistics. Report R43077. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.
Working paper: Murray, Sheila, and Kim Rueben. 2007. “School Finance over Time: How Changing Structures Affect Support for K–12 Education.” Policy Working Paper WP07SM1. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Brief: Bloom, Howard, Larry Orr, George Cave, Stephen H. Bell, and Fred Doolittle. 1993. “The National JTPA Study: Title IIA Impacts on Earnings and Employment at 18 Months.” Bethesda, MD: Abt Associates.
Brief (with abbreviated in-text citation): GAO (US Government Accountability Office). 2014. “State and Local Governments’ Fiscal Outlook.” Washington, DC: GAO.
Journal Articles
Tuladhar, Sugandha D., W. David Montgomery, and Noah Kaufman. 2015. “Environmental Policy for Fiscal Reform: Can a Carbon Tax Play a Role?“ National Tax Journal 68 (1): 179–94.
Wernman, Aaron, and Steven M. Teutsch. 2015. “Health in All Policies for Big Cities.” Journal of Public Health Management Practice 21 (Suppl 1): S56–S65.
Cook, Philip J., Jens Ludwig, Sudhir Venkatesh, and Anthony A. Braga. 2007. “Underground Gun Markets.” Economic Journal 117:558–88.
Unpublished Material
Paper presented at a meeting: Koulish, Jeremy, and Margaret A. Post. 2014. “Advocacy Trends in 501(c)(4) Organizations: A Study of Social Welfare Organizations and Their Advocacy Activities.” Paper presented at ARNOVA annual conference, Denver, CO, November 20–22.
PowerPoint presentation: Cohen, Marc A. 2014. “The Current State of the Long-Term Care Insurance Market.” Presentation given at the 14th Annual Intercompany Long-Term Care Insurance Conference, Orlando, FL, March 16–19.
Testimony with title: Burman, Leonard E. 2014. “Policies to Support the Middle Class.” Statement before the US Senate Committee on Finance, Washington, DC, March 13.
Testimony without title: Lawrence, Daniel. 2015. Statement before the Council of the District of Columbia Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC, May 7.
Personal communications/interviews: Cite in text (or in an existing Notes section). Citation should give the full name of the letter writer or person interviewed (unless it appears in the text), the description of the communication, and as exact a date as possible (e.g., Frank D. Bean, letter to the author, February 15, 1988. or Bean, Frank D. Interview by author. London, 4 February 1989).
Legal Matter
Laws, statutes, bills, resolutions, and regulations should be cited in notes. Bills or joint resolutions that have been signed into law—“public laws,” or statutes—are first published separately, as slip laws, and then collected in the annual bound volumes of the United States Statutes at Large (abbreviated in legal style as Stat.), where they are referred to as session laws. Later they are incorporated into the United States Code (USC).
The Federal Register is a legal newspaper published every business day by the National Archives and Records Administration. It contains federal agency regulations; proposed rules and notices; and executive orders, proclamations, and other presidential documents. The Code of Federal Regulations is the codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the federal government. It is divided into 50 titles that represent broad areas subject to federal regulation. Each volume of the CFR is updated once each calendar year and is issued quarterly.
- Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296, 116 Stat. 2135 (2002).
- Homeland Security Act of 2002, 6 USC § 101 (2002).
- Proclamation No. 8214, 73 Fed. Reg. 1439 (Jan. 8, 2008).
- Exec. Order No. 11, 609, 3 CFR 586 (1971–75).
Website Content
Website content, including blog entries, should be cited in notes. Include an author and date of publication or last revision if available. If no such date is available, include an access date. Never simply provide a URL.
- “Loan Programs,” Alaska Department of Commerce, accessed February 18, 2016, https://www.commerce.alaska.gov/web/ded/FIN/LoanPrograms.
- Timothy Howard, “Risk Sharing, or Not,” Howard on Mortgage Finance (blog), March 9, 2016, https://howardonmortgagefinance.com/2016/03/09-risk-sharing-or-not/.
