How to format your references using the Contemporary Family Therapy citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Contemporary Family Therapy. 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.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Killian, T. C. (2007). Ultracold neutral plasmas. Science (New York, N.Y.), 316(5825), 705–708.
A journal article with 2 authors
Maser, R. S., & DePinho, R. A. (2002). Connecting chromosomes, crisis, and cancer. Science (New York, N.Y.), 297(5581), 565–569.
A journal article with 3 authors
Barnett, T. P., Adam, J. C., & Lettenmaier, D. P. (2005). Potential impacts of a warming climate on water availability in snow-dominated regions. Nature, 438(7066), 303–309.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Hampton, J., Sibert, J. R., Kleiber, P., Maunder, M. N., & Harley, S. J. (2005). Fisheries: decline of Pacific tuna populations exaggerated? Nature, 434(7037), E1-2; discussion E2.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Mallée, R., Fuchs, W., & Eligehausen, R. (2013). Design of Fastenings for Use in Concrete - the CEN/TS 1992-4 Provisions. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.
An edited book
Belomestny, D. (2015). Lévy Matters IV: Estimation for Discretely Observed Lévy Processes. (F. Comte, V. Genon-Catalot, H. Masuda, & M. Reiß, Eds.) (Vol. 2128). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Shlaes, D. M., & Projan, S. J. (2009). Antimicrobial Resistance Versus the Discovery and Development of New Antimicrobials. In D. L. Mayers (Ed.), Antimicrobial Drug Resistance: Mechanisms of Drug Resistance (pp. 43–50). Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.

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 Family Therapy.

Blog post
Andrew, E. (2014, January 21). Milky Way galaxy likely formed inside out. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/milky-way-galaxy-likely-formed-inside-out/. Accessed 30 October 2018

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. (1990). Aviation Safety: FAA Is Considering Changes to Aviation Medical Standards (No. RCED-90-68FS). 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
Solorzano, E. (2014). A mindfulness-based psycho-educational group for caregivers of older adults: A grant proposal (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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
Feeney, K. (2010, August 22). More Than Just a Deli. New York Times, p. NJ11.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Killian 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Killian 2007; Maser and DePinho 2002).

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

  • Two authors: (Maser and DePinho 2002)
  • Three or more authors: (Hampton et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleContemporary Family Therapy
AbbreviationContemp. Fam. Ther.
ISSN (print)0892-2764
ISSN (online)1573-3335
ScopeClinical Psychology
Social Psychology
Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
Cultural Studies
General Psychology

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