How to format your references using the Decision citation style

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

Gizis, J. E. (2001). Astronomy. Brown dwarfs. Science (New York, N.Y.), 294(5543), 801–802.

A journal article with 2 authors

Eisch, A. J., & Petrik, D. (2012). Depression and hippocampal neurogenesis: a road to remission? Science (New York, N.Y.), 338(6103), 72–75.

A journal article with 3 authors

Paraschiv-Ionescu, A., Buchser, E., & Aminian, K. (2013). Unraveling dynamics of human physical activity patterns in chronic pain conditions. Scientific Reports, 3, 2019.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Delpini, D., Battiston, S., Riccaboni, M., Gabbi, G., Pammolli, F., & Caldarelli, G. (2013). Evolution of controllability in interbank networks. Scientific Reports, 3, 1626.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Preber, B. J. (2014). Financial Expert Witness Communication. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Edmonds, B., & Meyer, R. (Eds.). (2013). Simulating Social Complexity: A Handbook. Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Findsen, B. (2014). Developing a ‘Win-Win’ Scenario: Understanding How Older Workers’ Learning Can Be Enhanced Within Organisations. In T. Short & R. Harris (Eds.), Workforce Development: Strategies and Practices (pp. 59–73). 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 Decision.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, May 18). Do You Have A Lower Attention Span Than A Goldfish? IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/brain/do-you-have-lower-attention-span-goldfish/

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. (1988). Unmanned Vehicles: Assessment of DOD’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Master Plan (NSIAD-89-41BR). 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

Valdez, K. (2015). Taking a closer look at the mental health services act of 2004: A policy analysis [Doctoral dissertation]. California State University, Long Beach.

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

Strauss, B. (2017, February 4). Athletes Stand to Gain in a Settlement With the N.C.A.A. New York Times, SP2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gizis, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Eisch & Petrik, 2012; Gizis, 2001).

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

Two authors: (Eisch & Petrik, 2012)
Three authors: (Paraschiv-Ionescu et al., 2013)
6 or more authors: (Delpini et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Decision
Abbreviation	Decision (Wash., DC)
ISSN (print)	2325-9965
ISSN (online)	2325-9973
Scope