How to format your references using the Foundations of Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Foundations of 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:

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

Rogers, J. A. (2010). Journal club. A materials scientist comments on two methods for three-dimensional nanofabrication. Nature, 467(7311), 9.

A journal article with 2 authors

Alabugin, I., & Mohamed, R. K. (2014). Chemistry. A CO₂ cloak for the cyanide dagger. Science (New York, N.Y.), 344(6179), 45–46.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jewitt, D., Aussel, H., & Evans, A. (2001). The size and albedo of the Kuiper-belt object (20000) Varuna. Nature, 411(6836), 446–447.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Mount, A. S., Wheeler, A. P., Paradkar, R. P., & Snider, D. (2004). Hemocyte-mediated shell mineralization in the eastern oyster. Science (New York, N.Y.), 304(5668), 297–300.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Stone, R., & Gutiérrez-Albilla, J. D. (2013). A Companion to Luis Buñuel. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

An edited book

Bourassa, M. G., & Tardif, J.-C. (Eds.). (2006). Antioxidants and Cardiovascular Disease (Second Edition., Vol. 258). Boston, MA: Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Berndt, J. O., & Herzog, O. (2012). Distributed Learning of Best Response Behaviors in Concurrent Iterated Many-Object Negotiations. In I. J. Timm & C. Guttmann (Eds.), Multiagent System Technologies: 10th German Conference, MATES 2012, Trier, Germany, October 10-12, 2012. Proceedings (pp. 15–29). 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 Foundations of Science.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, September 2). The Secret Sex Life And Pregnancy Of A Seahorse Dad. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/secret-sex-life-and-pregnancy-seahorse-dad/. Accessed 30 October 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. (1988). DOD’s Risk Assessment and Safeguards Management of Chemical and Biological Warfare Research and Development Facilities (No. T-PEMD-88-10). 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

Hernandez, A. (2012). Impact of the Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006 on monthly caseworker visits to children in Los Angeles County on California’s foster care system (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Pilon, M. (2014, February 17). Honing Their Chances With Photos and Wit. New York Times, p. D6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Rogers 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Alabugin and Mohamed 2014; Rogers 2010).

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

Two authors: (Alabugin and Mohamed 2014)
Three or more authors: (Mount et al. 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Foundations of Science
Abbreviation	Found. Sci.
ISSN (print)	1233-1821
ISSN (online)	1572-8471
Scope	Multidisciplinary History and Philosophy of Science