How to format your references using the British Journal of Religious Education citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for British Journal of Religious Education. 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

Joyce, Gerald F. 2002. “The Antiquity of RNA-Based Evolution.” Nature 418 (6894): 214–221.

A journal article with 2 authors

Besenbacher, F., and J. K. Nørskov. 2000. “SURFACE SCIENCE: How to Power a Nanomotor.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 290 (5496): 1520.

A journal article with 3 authors

Martin, Adam C., Matthias Kaschube, and Eric F. Wieschaus. 2009. “Pulsed Contractions of an Actin-Myosin Network Drive Apical Constriction.” Nature 457 (7228): 495–499.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Kumagai, H., T. Ohminato, M. Nakano, M. Ooi, A. Kubo, H. Inoue, and J. Oikawa. 2001. “Very-Long-Period Seismic Signals and Caldera Formation at Miyake Island, Japan.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 293 (5530): 687–690.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Jay, Stephen A. 2006. High Voltage Electricity Installations. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Chen, Herbert, ed. 2016. Illustrative Handbook of General Surgery. 2nd ed. 2016. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Trovati, Marcello. 2015. “An Overview of Some Theoretical Topological Aspects of Big Data.” In Big-Data Analytics and Cloud Computing: Theory, Algorithms and Applications, edited by Marcello Trovati, Richard Hill, Ashiq Anjum, Shao Ying Zhu, and Lu Liu, 53–64. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

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 Religious Education.

Blog post

Evans, Katy. 2016. “African Forest Elephants Could Take 100 Years To Recover From Poaching.” IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/african-forest-elephants-could-take-100-years-to-recover-from-poaching/.

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. 2011. Postsecondary Education: Student Outcomes Vary at For-Profit, Nonprofit, and Public Schools. GAO-12-143. 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

Ellerbrook, Sharon Lynn. 2009. “Exploring the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Teacher Selection Tools: The Effects on the Total Group with a Focus on the Gender Sub-Groups.” Doctoral dissertation, St. Charles, MO: Lindenwood 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

Gustines, George Gene. 2011. “Leaping Off the Pages in the Himalayas.” New York Times, December 30.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Joyce 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Joyce 2002; Besenbacher and Nørskov 2000).

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

Two authors: (Besenbacher and Nørskov 2000)
Three authors: (Martin, Kaschube, and Wieschaus 2009)
4 or more authors: (Kumagai et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	British Journal of Religious Education
Abbreviation	Br. J. Relig. Educ.
ISSN (print)	0141-6200
ISSN (online)	1740-7931
Scope	Religious studies Education