How to format your references using the Critical Studies in Media Communication citation style

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

Feinberg, A. P. (2007). Phenotypic plasticity and the epigenetics of human disease. Nature, 447(7143), 433–440.

A journal article with 2 authors

Shields, G. A., & Kasting, J. F. (2007). Palaeoclimatology: evidence for hot early oceans? Nature, 447(7140), E1; discussion E1-2.

A journal article with 3 authors

Yoder, B. L., Bisson, R., & Beck, R. D. (2010). Steric effects in the chemisorption of vibrationally excited methane on Ni(100). Science (New York, N.Y.), 329(5991), 553–556.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Safran, R. J., Neuman, C. R., McGraw, K. J., & Lovette, I. J. (2005). Dynamic paternity allocation as a function of male plumage color in barn swallows. Science (New York, N.Y.), 309(5744), 2210–2212.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

The Family Firm Institute, Inc. (2013). Family Enterprise. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Singh, C., Singh Lehal, G., Sengupta, J., Sharma, D. V., & Goyal, V. (Eds.). (2011). Information Systems for Indian Languages: International Conference, ICISIL 2011, Patiala, India, March 9-11, 2011. Proceedings (Vol. 139). Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Alves-Prado, H. F., Gomes, E., & Da Silva, R. (2007). Purification and Characterization of a Cyclomaltodextrin Glucanotransferase From Paenibacillus campinasensis Strain H69-3. In J. R. Mielenz, K. T. Klasson, W. S. Adney, & J. D. McMillan (Eds.), Applied Biochemistry and Biotecnology: The Twenty-Eighth Symposium Proceedings of the Twenty-Eight Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals Held April 30–May 3, 2006, in Nashville, Tennessee (pp. 41–55). 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 Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014, December 20). Rise And Shine! New Horizons Awakes Ahead Of A Date With Pluto. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/rise-and-shine-new-horizons-awakes-ahead-date-pluto/

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. (1984). Evaluating the Department of Education’s Field Readers: Were They Qualified? (125830). 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

Chappel, A. M. (2012). A Longitudinal Investigation of Stress, Complete Mental Health, and Social Support among High School Students [Doctoral dissertation]. University of South Florida.

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

Lyman, R., & Walsh, M. W. (2014, April 21). Bankrupt City Fighting to Open a Crack in California’s Pension Agency. New York Times, A11.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Feinberg, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Feinberg, 2007; Shields & Kasting, 2007).

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

Two authors: (Shields & Kasting, 2007)
Three authors: (Yoder et al., 2010)
6 or more authors: (Safran et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Critical Studies in Media Communication
Abbreviation	Crit. Stud. Media Commun.
ISSN (print)	1529-5036
ISSN (online)	1479-5809
Scope	Communication