How to format your references using the African Identities citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for African Identities. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Snow, R. W. (2004). The invisible victims. Nature, 430(7002), 934–935.

A journal article with 2 authors

Honma, T., & Goto, K. (2001). Complexes of MADS-box proteins are sufficient to convert leaves into floral organs. Nature, 409(6819), 525–529.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jan, C. H., Williams, C. C., & Weissman, J. S. (2015). LOCAL TRANSLATION. Response to Comment on “Principles of ER cotranslational translocation revealed by proximity-specific ribosome profiling.” Science (New York, N.Y.), 348(6240), 1217.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Bekker, A., Holland, H. D., Wang, P.-L., Rumble, D., 3rd, Stein, H. J., Hannah, J. L., Coetzee, L. L., & Beukes, N. J. (2004). Dating the rise of atmospheric oxygen. Nature, 427(6970), 117–120.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Köhler, A., & Bässler, H. (2015). Electronic Processes in Organic Semiconductors. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Wang, V. (2012). Promoting Balanced Competitiveness Strategies of Firms in Developing Countries (E. G. Carayannis, Ed.; Vol. 12). Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Kätsch, C. (2008). Assessing Landscape Attributes. In K. von Gadow & T. Pukkala (Eds.), Designing Green Landscapes (pp. 79–108). Springer Netherlands.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for African Identities.

Blog post

Andrews, R. (2016, July 4). “Maleness Gene” Could Be Key To Destroying Malaria Mosquitos. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/maleness-gene-could-be-key-to-destroying-malaria-mosquitos/

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office. (1993). Urban Transportation: Issues Related to the South Corridor Study (RCED-93-195BR). U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Allen, M. W. (2017). Popular Culture and War in the Vietnam Era [Doctoral dissertation]. Southern Illinois University.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Vecsey, G. (2010, April 14). Matsui Stars in Another Classic Bronx Tale. New York Times, B12.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Snow, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Honma & Goto, 2001; Snow, 2004).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Honma & Goto, 2001)
Three authors: (Jan et al., 2015)
6 or more authors: (Bekker et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	African Identities
ISSN (print)	1472-5843
ISSN (online)	1472-5851
Scope	Anthropology Cultural Studies