How to format your references using the Collegian citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Collegian. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Fairley, P. (2015). Energy storage: Power revolution. Nature, 526(7575), S102-4.
A journal article with 2 authors
Littman, D. R., & Singh, H. (2007). Immunology. Asymmetry and immune memory. Science (New York, N.Y.), 315(5819), 1673–1674.
A journal article with 3 authors
Chen, S.-H., Chen, W.-R., & Mallamace, F. (2003). The glass-to-glass transition and its end point in a copolymer micellar system. Science (New York, N.Y.), 300(5619), 619–622.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Do, M. T. H., Kang, S. H., Xue, T., Zhong, H., Liao, H.-W., Bergles, D. E., & Yau, K.-W. (2009). Photon capture and signalling by melanopsin retinal ganglion cells. Nature, 457(7227), 281–287.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Evtukh, A., Hartnagel, H., Yilmazoglu, O., Mimura, H., & Pavlidis, D. (2015). Vacuum Nanoelectronic Devices. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Cai, Y. (Ed.). (2013). 3D Immersive and Interactive Learning. Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Araç, D., Sträter, N., & Seiradake, E. (2016). Understanding the Structural Basis of Adhesion GPCR Functions. In T. Langenhan & T. Schöneberg (Eds.), Adhesion G Protein-coupled Receptors: Molecular, Physiological and Pharmacological Principles in Health and Disease (pp. 67–82). 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 Collegian.

Blog post
Fang, J. (2014, December 2). Ancient Carnivorous Leaves Discovered in Amber. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ancient-carnivorous-leaves-discovered-amber/

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. (1984). Many Proprietary Schools Do Not Comply With Department of Education’s Pell Grant Program Requirements (HRD-84-17). 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
Bourne, B. B. (2009). Phenomenological study of response to organizational change: Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Phoenix.

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
Davey, M. (2013, March 14). Bankruptcy Lawyer Is Named to Rescue Detroit From Fiscal Disaster. New York Times, A13.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Fairley, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Fairley, 2015; Littman & Singh, 2007).

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

  • Two authors: (Littman & Singh, 2007)
  • Three authors: (Chen et al., 2003)
  • 6 or more authors: (Do et al., 2009)

About the journal

Full journal titleCollegian
AbbreviationCollegian
ISSN (print)1322-7696
ScopeGeneral Nursing

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