How to format your references using the Contemporary British History citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Contemporary British History. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Anand, P. “Public Health. Decision-Making When Science Is Ambiguous.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 295, no. 5561 (March 8, 2002): 1839.

A journal article with 2 authors

Harrison, Stephenie A., and Frank Tong. “Decoding Reveals the Contents of Visual Working Memory in Early Visual Areas.” Nature 458, no. 7238 (April 2, 2009): 632–35.

A journal article with 3 authors

Helbing, D., I. Farkas, and T. Vicsek. “Simulating Dynamical Features of Escape Panic.” Nature 407, no. 6803 (September 28, 2000): 487–90.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Day, Peter K., Henry G. LeDuc, Benjamin A. Mazin, Anastasios Vayonakis, and Jonas Zmuidzinas. “A Broadband Superconducting Detector Suitable for Use in Large Arrays.” Nature 425, no. 6960 (October 23, 2003): 817–21.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Weller, Richard B., Hamish J. A. Hunter, and Margaret W. Mann. Clinical Dermatology. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2014.

An edited book

Kell, Marilyn. Literacy and Language in East Asia: Shifting Meanings, Values and Approaches. Edited by Peter Kell. Vol. 24. Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects. Singapore: Springer, 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Genovese, E., A. Leonardi, L. Callegari, M. G. Angeretti, M. Albrizio, E. Spanò, and C. Fugazzola. “Major and Minor Pediatric Traumatic Musculotendinous Injuries.” In Imaging of Pediatric Bone and Joint Trauma, edited by Fabio Martino, Claudio Defilippi, and Roberto Caudana, 69–81. Milano: Springer, 2011.

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 British History.

Blog post

Andrew, Elise. “Trouble Strikes China’s Lunar Rover, Yutu.” IFLScience. IFLScience, January 28, 2014. https://www.iflscience.com/space/trouble-strikes-china’s-lunar-rover-yutu/.

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. “Small Business Research Programs: More Guidance and Oversight Needed to Comply with Spending and Reporting Requirements.” Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 6, 2014.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Tan-atichat, Taurin Pete. “Behavior of VNC in High-Latency Environments and Techniques for Improvement.” Doctoral dissertation, University of California San Diego, 2008.

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

Wagner, James. “Idea Reborn: Mets Consider Six-Man Rotation.” New York Times, June 7, 2017.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text

About the journal

Full journal title	Contemporary British History
Abbreviation	Contemp. Br. Hist.
ISSN (print)	1361-9462
ISSN (online)	1743-7997
Scope	History Development Safety Research Cultural Studies Political Science and International Relations

Research and Writing Guides