How to format your references using the Family Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Family Science. 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
Widera, A. (2014). Physics. The advantages of extra entanglement. Science (New York, N.Y.), 344(6180), 160–161.
A journal article with 2 authors
Wiseman, B. S., & Werb, Z. (2002). Stromal effects on mammary gland development and breast cancer. Science (New York, N.Y.), 296(5570), 1046–1049.
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
Zhang, C., Xu, J., Chui, P. C., & Wong, K. K. Y. (2013). Parametric spectro-temporal analyzer (PASTA) for real-time optical spectrum observation. Scientific Reports, 3, 2064.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Seyfried, T. N. (2012). Cancer as a Metabolic Disease. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Schumpelick, V., & Fitzgibbons, R. J. (Eds.). (2007). Recurrent Hernia: Prevention and Treatment. Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Kaleem, A., & Ahmad, S. (2016). Bankers’ Perception towards Bai Salam Method for Agriculture Financing in Pakistan. In T. Harrison & E. Ibrahim (Eds.), Islamic Finance: Principles, Performance and Prospects (pp. 66–85). Springer International Publishing.

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 Family Science.

Blog post
O`Callaghan, J. (2017, June 2). SpaceX Will Make History With Its Next Launch Tomorrow. IFLScience; IFLScience.

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. (2005). Digital Television Transition: Questions on Administrative Costs of an Equipment Subsidy Program (GAO-05-837R). 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
Rey, D. (2017). Chaos, Observability and Symplectic Structure in Optimal Estimation [Doctoral dissertation]. University of California San Diego.

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
Gustines, G. G. (2017, May 17). Weak Sales Doom Black Panther Spinoff. New York Times, C3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Widera, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Widera, 2014; Wiseman & Werb, 2002).

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

  • Two authors: (Wiseman & Werb, 2002)
  • Three authors: (Paraschiv-Ionescu et al., 2013)
  • 6 or more authors: (Zhang et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleFamily Science
AbbreviationFam. Sci.
ISSN (print)1942-4620
ISSN (online)1942-4639
ScopeSocial Psychology
Sociology and Political Science
Anthropology

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