18 Rules of Thumb

• In bibliographies and reference lists, authors’ names, arranged alphabetically, follow the format: LAST NAME, FIRST NAME.
• We commonly do not use bibliographies; we use footnotes at the bottom of the page where the note is marked by the superscript numeral. For footnotes, authors’ names are listed as follows: FIRST NAME, LAST NAME. In blog posts and other web-only publications not formatted as PDFs (e.g., data updates), use inline hyperlinks instead of footnotes.
• Next comes the article/publication being cited.
• When listing the URL to go with your citation in the footnote, always start off “http://www.” Although many URLs are programmed to work just fine without the “www.” not all are designed that way. The exception is when the citation is a DOI (digital object identifier), beginning “http://doi,” and not a URL (uniform resource locator).
• Do not combine multiple footnotes at the end of a sentence (e.g. 1, 2, 3). Instead, combine them into one footnote with each citation separated by a semicolons.

For an Article in A Journal

• Quote marks go around the title of the article, in normal type. Then, the name of the publication that has the article is in italics, no quote marks. If there is a volume number, that comes next, followed by a colon and the issue number, if there is one.
• Next comes the date/year of the article being cited, in parentheses, followed by a comma. When there is an exact day of the article, the month is abbreviated; when there is just the month and year, the month is spelled out.
• Then, the pages are cited, using numerals only, no “pp” or “pg” or “p”.
• Next, add the URL when possible. And a period ends it all (outside of the URL).

Example

<aside> 💡 $^1$ Clemens Fuest, Andreas Peichl, and Sebastian Siegloch, “Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany,” American Economic Review 108:2 (February 2018): 393-418, https://www.doi.org/10.1257/aer.20130570.

</aside>

For an Article in A Newspaper or News Magazine

• Everything is the same as above, except there is no volume or issue number, and the date does not go inside a parentheses:

Example

<aside> 💡 $^2$ Scott A. Hodge, “Warren’s Wealth Tax Enriches Foreign Billionaires,” The Wall Street Journal, Mar. 8, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/warrens-wealth-tax-enriches-foreign-billionaires-11615227317.

</aside>

For A Book

• Author’s first name, last name; title of the book in italics; in parentheses, city of the publishing company, followed by a colon, then the name of the publishing company, followed by a comma, followed by year of publication; end parentheses.
• If specific pages are being cited, they go after the parentheses information.