How to format your references using the Critical African Studies citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Critical African Studies. 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

Crow, Michael M. 2013. “Digital Learning: Look, Then Leap.” Nature 499 (7458): 275–277.

A journal article with 2 authors

Nakar, Ehud, and Tsvi Piran. 2011. “Detectable Radio Flares Following Gravitational Waves from Mergers of Binary Neutron Stars.” Nature 478 (7367): 82–84.

A journal article with 3 authors

Dong, Jinhui, Guangyong Yang, and Hassane S. McHaourab. 2005. “Structural Basis of Energy Transduction in the Transport Cycle of MsbA.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 308 (5724): 1023–1028.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Endres, Nicholas F., Craig Yoshioka, Ronald A. Milligan, and Ronald D. Vale. 2006. “A Lever-Arm Rotation Drives Motility of the Minus-End-Directed Kinesin Ncd.” Nature 439 (7078): 875–878.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Häussler-Combe, Ulrich. 2014. Computational Methods for Reinforced Concrete Structures. D-69451 Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH.

An edited book

Dapor, Maurizio. 2005. Elaborazione Dei Dati Sperimentali. Edited by Monica Ropele. UNITEXT. Milano: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Sadia, Yatir, Ohad Ben-Yehuda, and Yaniv Gelbstein. 2013. “Highly Efficient Segmented P-Type Thermoelectric Leg.” In New Materials for Thermoelectric Applications: Theory and Experiment, edited by Veljko Zlatic and Alex Hewson, 59–65. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics. 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 Critical African Studies.

Blog post

Andrew, Elise. 2015. “Despite Shell’s About-Face, Interest In Arctic Oil Grows.” IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/despite-shell-s-about-face-interest-arctic-oil-grows/.

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. 2009. Federal Student Aid Formula: Cost-of-Living Adjustment Could Increase Aid to a Small Percentage of Students in High-Cost Areas but Could Also Further Complicate Aid Process. GAO-09-825. 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

Nelson, Jenna-Marie Caron. 2008. “The Effect of Class Size on a Teacher’s Job Satisfaction in a Southeastern Urban LEA.” 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

Kelly, Sean. 1995. “Mighty Joe Mishbooker.” New York Times, November 12.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Crow 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Crow 2013; Nakar and Piran 2011).

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

Two authors: (Nakar and Piran 2011)
Three authors: (Dong, Yang, and McHaourab 2005)
4 or more authors: (Endres et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Critical African Studies
Abbreviation	Crit. Afr. Stud.
ISSN (print)	2168-1392
ISSN (online)	2040-7211
Scope	General Arts and Humanities General Social Sciences