How to format your references using the Computers and Composition citation style

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

Hestrin, S. (2011). Neuroscience. The strength of electrical synapses. Science (New York, N.Y.), 334(6054), 315–316.

A journal article with 2 authors

Berkman, P. A., & Young, O. R. (2009). Science and government. Governance and environmental change in the Arctic Ocean. Science (New York, N.Y.), 324(5925), 339–340.

A journal article with 3 authors

Akoulitchev, S., Chuikov, S., & Reinberg, D. (2000). TFIIH is negatively regulated by cdk8-containing mediator complexes. Nature, 407(6800), 102–106.

A journal article with 21 or more authors

Davidson, A. G., Chan, V., O’Dell, R., & Schieber, M. H. (2007). Rapid changes in throughput from single motor cortex neurons to muscle activity. Science (New York, N.Y.), 318(5858), 1934–1937.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cronin, R. (2012). Reading Victorian Poetry. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Koopman, P., Plasmeijer, R., & Swierstra, D. (Eds.). (2009). Advanced Functional Programming: 6th International School, AFP 2008, Heijen, The Netherlands, May 2008, Revised Lectures (Vol. 5832). Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Elaba, Z., Murphy, M. J., Kerr, P., & Grant-Kels, J. M. (2012). Staging of Melanoma. In M. J. Murphy (Ed.), Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarkers and Therapeutic Targets in Melanoma (pp. 39–48). Springer.

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 Computers and Composition.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, July 7). In a Water-Scarce West of the Future, Who Will be Hit Hardest? IFLScience; IFLScience.

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. (2001). Internal Revenue Service: 2001 Tax Filing Season, Systems Modernization, and Security of Electronic Filing (GAO-01-595T). 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

Hart, M. M. (2013). R&D Characteristics and Organizational Structure: Case Studies of University-Industry Research Centers [Doctoral dissertation]. George Washington 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

Koblin, J. (2017, July 30). For Revival, MTV Pivots To Its Past. New York Times, B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hestrin, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Berkman & Young, 2009; Hestrin, 2011).

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

Two authors: (Berkman & Young, 2009)
Three or more authors: (Davidson et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	Computers and Composition
Abbreviation	Comput. Compos.
ISSN (print)	8755-4615
Scope	Language and Linguistics General Computer Science Education Linguistics and Language