How to format your references using the Contemporary Arab Affairs citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Contemporary Arab Affairs. 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

Howard, Andrew W. 2013. “Observed Properties of Extrasolar Planets.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 340 (6132): 572–576.

A journal article with 2 authors

Evans, James W., and Patricia A. Thiel. 2010. “Chemistry. A Little Chemistry Helps the Big Get Bigger.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 330 (6004): 599–600.

A journal article with 3 authors

Peters, Shanan E., Daniel C. Kelly, and Andrew J. Fraass. 2013. “Oceanographic Controls on the Diversity and Extinction of Planktonic Foraminifera.” Nature 493 (7432): 398–401.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Ferguson, Neil M., Derek A. T. Cummings, Simon Cauchemez, Christophe Fraser, Steven Riley, Aronrag Meeyai, Sopon Iamsirithaworn, and Donald S. Burke. 2005. “Strategies for Containing an Emerging Influenza Pandemic in Southeast Asia.” Nature 437 (7056): 209–214.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Saguet, Pierre. 2013. Numerical Analysis in Electromagnetics. Hoboken, NJ USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Kole, Chittaranjan, ed. 2011. Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources: Temperate Fruits. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Brunner, Daniel, and Tim Voigt. 2008. “Innovation Processes in Cooperative Organizations: Results of a Case Study Research.” In Strategy and Governance of Networks: Cooperatives, Franchising, and Strategic Alliances, edited by George Hendrikse, Mika Tuunanen, Josef Windsperger, and Gérard Cliquet, 47–62. Contributions to Management Science. Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag HD.

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 Arab Affairs.

Blog post

Andrew, Elise. 2014. “What Happens When You Saw A Rubber Band Ball in Half?” 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. 1975. Federal Guidance Needed If Halfway Houses Are To Be a Viable Alternative to Prison. GGD-75-70. 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

BenVau, Lee. 2014. “Effects of Larval Nosema Ceranae Infection on Adult Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera) Morphology and Physiology.” Doctoral dissertation, La Jolla, CA: University of California San Diego.

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, Linda. 2008. “Court Hears Arguments on Burden of Proof in Age Suits.” New York Times, April 24.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Howard 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Howard 2013; Evans and Thiel 2010).

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

Two authors: (Evans and Thiel 2010)
Three authors: (Peters, Kelly, and Fraass 2013)
4 or more authors: (Ferguson et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Contemporary Arab Affairs
Abbreviation	Contemp. Arab Aff.
ISSN (print)	1755-0912
ISSN (online)	1755-0920
Scope	Cultural Studies Political Science and International Relations

Research and Writing Guides