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

Palmer T (2015) Modelling: Build Imprecise Supercomputers. Nature 526, 32–33.

A journal article with 2 authors

Inoue A and Zhang Y (2011) Replication-Dependent Loss of 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine in Mouse Preimplantation Embryos. Science (New York, N.Y.) 334, 194.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cao A, Romanowicz B and Takeuchi N (2005) An Observation of PKJKP: Inferences on Inner Core Shear Properties. Science (New York, N.Y.) 308, 1453–1455.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Xing M et al. (2014) Highly-Dispersed Boron-Doped Graphene Nanosheets Loaded with TiO2 Nanoparticles for Enhancing CO2 Photoreduction. Scientific reports 4, 6341.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bachmann H and Steinle A (2012) Precast Concrete Structures. Berlin, Germany: Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH & Co. KG.

An edited book

Oudkerk M and Reiser MF (eds) (2009) Coronary Radiology, 2nd Revised Edition. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Sinz W et al. (2013) Safety Measures for Avoiding or Mitigating the Occupant Exposure in Collisions with Large Animals. In Ochsner A and Altenbach H (eds), Advances in Bio-Mechanical Systems and Materials. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 59–79.

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

Davis J (2016) New Species Of Giant Dinosaur Weighed The Same As Eight African Elephants. IFLScience. Available from https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/new-species-of-giant-dinosaur-weighed-the-same-as-eight-african-elephants/ (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 (1996) Substance Abuse Surveys. 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

Mustico JP (2010) ‘Perception and Preference Comparison of Managers’ Behaviors on Sales and Non -Sales Employees: A Case Study’. Doctoral dissertation, Minneapolis, MN: Capella 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

Brantley B (2016) Regrets? She Has a Big One. New York Times, September 29, C6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Palmer 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Inoue and Zhang 2011; Palmer 2015).

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

Two authors: (Inoue and Zhang 2011)
Three authors: (Cao, Romanowicz, and Takeuchi 2005)
4 or more authors: (Xing et al. 2014)

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