How to format your references using the Contemporary Accounting Research citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Contemporary Accounting Research (CAR). 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

Römling, U. 2013. “Microbiology: bacterial communities as capitalist economies.” Nature 497 (7449): 321–22.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gallouzi, I. E., and J. A. Steitz. 2001. “Delineation of mRNA export pathways by the use of cell-permeable peptides.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 294 (5548): 1895–1901.

A journal article with 3 authors

Karl, M., B. Nowak, and T. Gasenzer. 2013. “Tuning universality far from equilibrium.” Scientific reports 3: 2394.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Lambais, M. R., D. E. Crowley, J. C. Cury, R. C. Büll, and R. R. Rodrigues. 2006. “Bacterial diversity in tree canopies of the Atlantic forest.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 312 (5782): 1917.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Evans, G. M., and J. C. Furlong. 2010. Environmental Biotechnology. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Madria, S., and T. Hara, eds. 2015. Big Data Analytics and Knowledge Discovery: 17th International Conference, DaWaK 2015, Valencia, Spain, September 1-4, 2015, Proceedings. 1st ed. 2015. Vol. 9263. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Ryabov, V. V., A. Y. Shevko, and M. P. Gora. 2014. “Basalt Magma Differentiation as a Source of Variety in Traps.” In Trap Magmatism and Ore Formation in the Siberian Noril’sk Region: Volume 1. Trap Petrology, edited by A. Y. Shevko and M. P. Gora, 275–328. Modern Approaches in Solid Earth Sciences. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

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 Contemporary Accounting Research.

Blog post

Fang, J. 2015. “How To Watch The Rare Zodiacal Light This Month.” IFLScience. IFLScience, February 12, 2015, https://www.iflscience.com/space/how-watch-zodiacal-light-month/.

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. 1976. “Cable Television and a Regulatory Policy.” CED-76-124. 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

Ringberg, J. E. 2012. “Daily life at Cerro León, an Early Intermediate period highland settlement in the Moche Valley, Peru.” Doctoral dissertation, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina.

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. 2017. “Searching for the Mainstream.” New York Times, February 1, 2017.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Römling 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Römling 2013; Gallouzi and Steitz 2001).

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

Two authors: (Gallouzi and Steitz 2001)
Three or more authors: (Lambais et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Contemporary Accounting Research
ISSN (online)	1911-3846
Scope