How to format your references using the British Journal of Political Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for British Journal of Political Science (BJPS). 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Tutu D (2011) Genome-Sequencing Anniversary. My Genome. Science (New York, N.Y.) 331, 689.

A journal article with 2 authors

Walczyk T and von Blanckenburg F (2002) Natural Iron Isotope Variations in Human Blood. Science (New York, N.Y.) 295, 2065–2066.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bartels A, Heinecke D and Diddams SA (2009) 10-GHz Self-Referenced Optical Frequency Comb. Science (New York, N.Y.) 326, 681.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Kolber ZS et al. (2001) Contribution of Aerobic Photoheterotrophic Bacteria to the Carbon Cycle in the Ocean. Science (New York, N.Y.) 292, 2492–2495.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Venkataraman K (2015) Design of Jigs, Fixtures and Press Tools. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Borkar VS (2012) Hamiltonian Cycle Problem and Markov Chains, Ejov V, Filar JA and Nguyen GT (eds). New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Luna-Elizarrarás ME et al. (2015) Geometry and Trigonometric Representations of Bicomplex Numbers. In Shapiro M, Struppa DC and Vajiac A (eds), Bicomplex Holomorphic Functions: The Algebra, Geometry and Analysis of Bicomplex Numbers. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 51–72.

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 British Journal of Political Science.

Blog post

Andrew D (2016) The 41 Most Nutritious Foods On Earth. IFLScience. Available from https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/the-41-most-nutritious-foods-on-earth/ (accessed 30 October 2018).

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 (2008) Status of Implementation of GAO Recommendations on Evacuation of Transportation-Disadvantaged Populations and Patients and Residents of Health Care Facilities. Washington, DC: 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

Platt JB (2008) ‘Feast in the Time of Terror: Stalinist Temporal Paradox and the 1937 Pushkin Jubilee’. Doctoral dissertation, New York, NY: Columbia 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

Greenhouse L (2008) Supreme Court Alters Tone In a Discrimination Case. New York Times, February 28, A19.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Tutu 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Tutu 2011; Walczyk and von Blanckenburg 2002).

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

Two authors: (Walczyk and von Blanckenburg 2002)
Three authors: (Bartels, Heinecke, and Diddams 2009)
4 or more authors: (Kolber et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	British Journal of Political Science
Abbreviation	Br. J. Polit. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0007-1234
ISSN (online)	1469-2112
Scope	Sociology and Political Science