AAA citation style is the American Anthropological Association's format for anthropology papers using parenthetical author-date citations and a References Cited list. AAA citation style uses author-date parenthetical citations formatted as (Last Name Year) and a References Cited page at the end of the paper.
AAA Citation Style: Learn to Cite Different Sources With Examples
Written By Selena J
Reviewed By Cathy A.
16 min read
Published: Dec 10, 2024
Last Updated: Jul 13, 2026
What Is AAA Citation Style?
AAA citation style is the referencing system of the American Anthropological Association, used in anthropology research papers, ethnographies, and journal submissions. It is a modified version of Chicago author-date style: sources appear as (Author Year) in the text and are listed in full in a "References Cited" section at the end of the document.
If you are writing across multiple disciplines and need to compare styles, our Citation Styles Complete Guide covers AAA alongside every other major referencing system used in academic writing. CollegeEssay.org's research paper writers regularly format papers in AAA style for students in anthropology and social science courses.
AAA differs from other author-date systems in a few specific ways.
- Page numbers appear after the year with a colon, as in (Smith 2023:45), rather than with "p." or a comma.
- The References Cited list uses a hanging indent format.
- AAA separates "References Cited," which contains only works actually cited in the text, from a broader bibliography, which is the format most anthropology professors require.
- In AAA style cite in parentheses with the author's last name and year (Smith 2023) and title your reference list "References Cited."
How Do You Format an AAA Title Page?
An AAA title page follows standard academic formatting with no page number displayed on the first page. Include the following elements in order, all centered and double-spaced:
- Title of your paper
- Your name
- Course name and number
- Instructor's name
- Institution name
- Date of submission
Formatting requirements for the title page: double-spaced throughout, 12-point Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins on all sides. The title page counts as page one of the document but the page number is not shown.
How Do You Write AAA In-Text Citations?
AAA in-text citations place the author's last name and publication year in parentheses within the sentence, before the closing punctuation. The format is consistent across all source types: author and year, nothing else, unless you are quoting directly. CollegeEssay.org's anthropology writers find that the most frequently missed in-text citation detail is the page number on direct quotes.
Single-Author AAA In-Text Citation
Use the author's last name and publication year in parentheses, placed before the closing punctuation of the sentence.
Format | (Last Name Year) |
Example | (Smith 2023) |
Two-Author AAA In-Text Citation
List both last names connected with "and," followed by the year. AAA does not use an ampersand in in-text citations.
Format | (Last Name and Last Name Year) |
Example | (Doe and Baker 2023) |
Three or More Authors: AAA In-Text Citation
Use the first author's last name followed by "et al." and the year. Et al. is not italicized in AAA style.
Format | (Last Name et al. Year) |
Example | (Jones et al. 2023) |
Direct Quotes: AAA In-Text Citation
Direct quotations require a page number after the year, separated by a colon; omitting it is one of the most common AAA formatting errors.
Format | (Last Name Year:page) |
Example | (Smith 2023:45) |
Multiple Sources in One AAA In-Text Citation
List sources in chronological order within one set of parentheses, separated by semicolons.
Format | (First Author Year; Second Author Year) |
Example | (Smith 2023; Doe and Baker 2024) |
Formatting in-text citations follows a consistent pattern, but building the full reference list by hand takes longer, particularly with edited volumes, online-only sources, and sources with missing details. If you would rather not format each entry from scratch, you can get citation help online and have your AAA references built automatically while you focus on the argument.
AAA Reference List Formats by Source Type
The AAA reference list appears at the end of the document under the centered heading "References Cited." List all sources in alphabetical order by the first author's last name. Use a hanging indent for each entry, meaning the first line sits flush with the left margin and all following lines are indented. Double-space all entries and use 12-point Times New Roman with 1-inch margins throughout.
Include only sources you actually cited in the text. Sources consulted but not cited do not belong in the References Cited list. If your assignment calls for a broader source list that includes everything you consulted, with a note on each source, that is an annotated bibliography rather than a References Cited page.
Books: AAA Reference List Format
The standard book entry lists the author's last name first, followed by the year, the title in italics, and the publication details.
Format | Last Name, First Name. Year. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher. |
Example | Smith, John. 2023. Kinship Structures in West Africa. New York: Columbia University Press. |
Books with Multiple Authors: AAA Format
Invert only the first author's name; list all subsequent authors in normal order with "and" before the final name.
Format | Last Name, First Name, First Name Last Name, and First Name Last Name. Year. Title. Place: Publisher. |
Example | Smith, John, Maria Garcia, and Kwame Asante. 2023. Ritual Exchange in Lowland Ecuador. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. |
Journal Articles: AAA Reference List Format
Journal entries include the volume and issue number directly after the journal title, with no space before the colon and page range.
Format | Last Name, First Name. Year. "Article Title." Journal Name Volume(Issue):Page Range. |
Example | Doe, Jane. 2023. "Burial Practices and Social Stratification in the Andes." American Ethnologist 50(2):134-149. |
Book Chapters in Edited Volumes: AAA Format
A chapter in an edited volume lists the chapter author first, then the chapter title, the book title, the editor's name, and the page range.
Format | Last Name, First Name. Year. "Chapter Title." In Book Title, edited by First Name Last Name, Page Range. Place: Publisher. |
Example | Baker, Susan. 2023. "Ritual Space in Urban Contexts." In The Anthropology of Contemporary Cities, edited by Mark Reynolds, 87-112. London: Routledge. |
Online Books and E-Books: AAA Format
Use the standard book format and append the URL at the end.
Format | Last Name, First Name. Year. Title. Place: Publisher. URL. |
Example | Smith, John. 2021. Digital Ethnography: Methods and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1vxm8c8. |
Websites: AAA Reference List Format
Website citations require the author (if available), year, page title in quotation marks, site name in italics, access date, and full URL.
Format | Last Name, First Name. Year. "Page Title." Website Name. Accessed Month Day, Year. URL. |
Example | Johnson, Pat. 2023. "Indigenous Land Rights in the Pacific Northwest." Anthropology Today. Accessed July 10, 2026. https://www.anthropologytoday.org/land-rights-pacific. |
Online Journal Articles: AAA Format
Online journal articles follow the print journal format with a DOI or URL appended at the end; use the DOI when available.
Format | Last Name, First Name. Year. "Article Title." Journal Name Volume(Issue):Page Range. DOI or URL. |
Example | James, Olivia. 2022. "Kinship Terminology Shifts in Amazonian Communities." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 28(3):612-631. https://doi.org/10.1111/jrai.12456. |
Newspapers and Magazines: AAA Format
Newspaper and magazine entries follow the journal pattern but use the publication date in place of volume and issue numbers.
Format | Last Name, First Name. Year. "Article Title." Publication Name, Month Day, Page. |
Example | Torres, Elena. 2023. "Archaeologists Uncover Bronze Age Settlement in Northern Syria." The Guardian, March 14, B4. |
Interviews: AAA Reference List Format
Published interviews name the interviewee as author; unpublished fieldwork interviews are cited as personal communications with a slightly different format.
Format (published interview) | Last Name, First Name. Year. Interview by First Name Last Name. Publication or Medium, Month Day. |
Example | Okafor, Emmanuel. 2022. Interview by David Chen. Current Anthropology, June 12. |
Format (personal communication) | Last Name, First Name. Year. Personal communication with author. Month Day. |
Example | Mbeki, Amara. 2024. Personal communication with author. August 3. |
Now, you understand the AAA system including in-text citation formats, and reference list entries. The next step is building your actual reference list, which takes longer than it should when you are working from memory against a deadline. A citation generator for anthropology papers handles the formatting automatically, so you can enter your source details and get a correctly structured AAA entry without re-checking the rules for each one.
Government Publications: AAA Format
Use the name of the government body or agency as the author in place of an individual's name.
Format | Organization Name. Year. Title of Report. Place: Publisher. |
Example | United States Census Bureau. 2020. American Community Survey: Demographic and Housing Estimates. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Publishing Office. |
Dissertations and Theses: AAA Format
Dissertations and theses identify the document type, department, and university after the title.
Format | Last Name, First Name. Year. "Title of Dissertation." PhD dissertation [or MA thesis], Department Name, University Name. |
Example | Park, Soo-Jin. 2021. "Transnational Identities Among Korean Diaspora Communities in Sao Paulo." PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan. |
Encyclopedia Articles: AAA Format
Encyclopedia article entries list the entry title in quotation marks, the encyclopedia title in italics, and the editor's name before the page range.
Format | Last Name, First Name. Year. "Entry Title." In Encyclopedia Title, edited by First Name Last Name, Volume:Page Range. Place: Publisher. |
Example | Williams, Roger. 2019. "Kinship." In International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by Hilary Callan, 5:3421-3429. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell. |
What to Do When Source Details Are Missing in AAA
When a source is missing an author, date, or publisher, AAA citation style has a direct substitution for each gap that keeps the citation consistent and traceable.
No Author Listed
When a source has no named author, use the title of the work in place of the author's name in both the in-text citation and the reference list entry.
In-text | (The Archaeology of Ritual 2022) |
Reference list | The Archaeology of Ritual. 2022. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
No Publication Date
Use "n.d." (no date) in place of the year wherever the year would normally appear.
In-text | (Doe n.d.) |
Reference list | Doe, Jane. n.d. Fieldwork in the Margins. New York: Anthropological Press. |
No Publisher Listed
Omit the publisher element entirely and include only the information that is available.
In-text | (Smith 2021) |
Reference list | Smith, John. 2021. Patterns of Migration. Boston. |
Organization as Author
Use the organization's full name in place of an individual author's last name in both the in-text citation and the reference list entry.
In-text | (World Health Organization 2022) |
Reference list | World Health Organization. 2022. Global Report on Traditional Medicine. Geneva: WHO. |
Online Source with No Author or Date
Start the citation with the page title in quotation marks and use "n.d." for the missing date.
In-text | ("Indigenous Rights Overview" n.d.) |
Reference list | "Indigenous Rights Overview." n.d. Anthropology Resources Online. Accessed July 10, 2026. https://www.anthropologyresources.org/indigenous-rights. |
What Are the Most Common AAA Citation Mistakes?
The most common AAA citation mistakes are wrong author order in the reference list, missing page numbers on direct quotes, and misused "et al." in the References Cited list.
- Wrong author formatting in the reference list. Only the first author's name is inverted in the reference list entry. Subsequent authors are listed in normal order. A common error is inverting every author: the correct format is "Smith, John, Maria Garcia, and Kwame Asante," not "Smith, John, Garcia, Maria, and Asante, Kwame."
- Missing page numbers on direct quotes. In-text citations for paraphrased ideas need only (Author Year). Direct quotations require (Author Year:page). The page number is not optional when quoting directly from a source.
- Using "p." before page numbers. AAA uses a colon before the page number, (Smith 2023:45), not "p." or "pg." This is one of the clearest formatting differences from APA style, which uses a comma and "p." before the number. Students switching from Oxford referencing face an even larger adjustment, as Oxford uses footnotes rather than in-text citations entirely.
- Using et al. in the reference list. Et al. belongs in in-text citations only, for sources with three or more authors. The References Cited list spells out every author's name in full.
- Wrong punctuation in the reference list. A period follows the year, the title, and the publisher in each entry. Missing or transposed periods are among the most common errors in student-formatted reference lists.
- Including sources not cited in the text. The References Cited list contains only sources you cited in the paper, not everything you read during research. Anything consulted but not cited stays out.
Conclusion
You have the complete AAA format: in-text citations, reference list rules for every source type, title page guidelines, special cases for missing details, and the most common errors to avoid. If you still need to write the paper itself, or want your reference list checked and formatted without going entry by entry, CollegeEssay.org's citation maker formats your sources in AAA style instantly with no formatting errors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is AAA citation style the same as Chicago style?
AAA citation style is based on Chicago Manual of Style author-date conventions but has its own specific rules. AAA prohibits ibid. for repeated references, requires full first names for authors where possible, and uses a colon with no space before page numbers, all of which differ from standard Chicago practice.
How do you cite multiple works by the same author in AAA citation style?
In the References Cited list, order multiple works by the same author chronologically from oldest to newest. When the same author published more than one work in the same year, add a lowercase letter after the year in both the in-text citation and the reference list entry: (Smith 2023a) and (Smith 2023b).
Does AAA citation style use ibid. for repeated references?
No. AAA citation style does not use ibid., op. cit., or any similar abbreviation for repeated references. Repeat the full in-text citation each time you reference the same source.
What is the difference between AAA citation style and APA?
The clearest formatting difference is in page numbers: AAA uses a colon directly after the year with no space (Smith 2023:45), while APA places a comma after the year and uses p. before the number. CollegeEssay.org's writers report that the page number format is the most common point of confusion when students switch from APA to AAA.
Can AAA citation style be used for non-anthropology papers?
AAA citation style is designed for anthropology research and is the standard for AAA journals and most anthropology courses. For papers in other disciplines, confirm with your professor which format is required, as most fields have a preferred style of their own. For help structuring the paper itself regardless of which citation format applies, our guide to writing a research paper covers the full process.
Selena J Verified
Writer
Selena J. is an academic writing specialist and research librarian with expertise across multiple citation and referencing systems. With over 11 years of experience helping students and researchers master Oxford, APA, MLA, Chicago, AAA, and other specialized citation formats, she demystifies the rules that often confuse writers. Selena specializes in breaking down the logic behind different referencing systems and showing how to apply them consistently and correctly. Her practical guides help writers focus on content rather than getting lost in citation details, while her comprehensive approach ensures accuracy across diverse academic disciplines.
Specializes in:
Citation formatting and styles
Academic referencing systems
Research documentation
Read All Articles by Selena J
Keep Reading
Was This Blog Helpful?
On this Page
