How to format your references using the Contemporary Sociology citation style

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

James, K. S. 2011. “India’s Demographic Change: Opportunities and Challenges.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 333(6042):576–80.

A journal article with 2 authors

Monk, Brian C., and Andre Goffeau. 2008. “Outwitting Multidrug Resistance to Antifungals.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 321(5887):367–69.

A journal article with 3 authors

Houchmandzadeh, Bahram, Eric Wieschaus, and Stanislas Leibler. 2002. “Establishment of Developmental Precision and Proportions in the Early Drosophila Embryo.” Nature 415(6873):798–802.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Fischer, Julia, Linda Koch, Christian Emmerling, Jeanette Vierkotten, Thomas Peters, Jens C. Brüning, and Ulrich Rüther. 2009. “Inactivation of the Fto Gene Protects from Obesity.” Nature 458(7240):894–98.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

McLeish, Barry. 2010. Successful Marketing Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Benner, Peter, Rolf Findeisen, Dietrich Flockerzi, Udo Reichl, and Kai Sundmacher, eds. 2014. Large-Scale Networks in Engineering and Life Sciences. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Laitinen, Minna, Maire Ratasvuori, and Toni-Karri Pakarinen. 2012. “The Multi-Modal Approach to Metastatic Disease.” Pp. 35–44 in European Instructional Lectures: Volume 12, 2012, 13th EFORT Congress, Berlin, Germany, edited by G. Bentley. Berlin, Heidelberg: 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 Contemporary Sociology.

Blog post

Andrew, Elise. 2014. “Astronomers Measure Exoplanet’s Day For The First Time.” IFLScience. Retrieved October 30, 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. 1973. U.S. Agencies Could Benefit by Better Management of ADP Activities of Government Contractors. B-115369. 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

Hebbard, Matthew T. 2015. “A Depositional Analysis of the Reeves Sand in Beauregard and Allen Parishes, Louisiana.” Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA.

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

Rothenberg, Ben. 2016. “Williams Sisters Could Be in Step for a Semifinal Showdown.” New York Times, August 26, D3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (James 2011).
This sentence cites two references (James 2011; Monk and Goffeau 2008).

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

Two authors: (Monk and Goffeau 2008)
Three authors: (Houchmandzadeh, Wieschaus, and Leibler 2002)
4 or more authors: (Fischer et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	Contemporary Sociology
Abbreviation	Contemp. Sociol.
ISSN (print)	0094-3061
Scope	Sociology and Political Science