How to format your references using the Futures citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Futures. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
Bloch, I. (2008). Quantum coherence and entanglement with ultracold atoms in optical lattices. Nature, 453(7198), 1016–1022.
A journal article with 2 authors
Moret, Y., & Schmid-Hempel, P. (2001). Immune defence in bumble-bee offspring. Nature, 414(6863), 506.
A journal article with 3 authors
Huang, X., Hansen, N., & Tsuji, N. (2006). Hardening by annealing and softening by deformation in nanostructured metals. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312(5771), 249–251.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
van Leeuwen, J. F. N., Froyd, C. A., van der Knaap, W. O., Coffey, E. E., Tye, A., & Willis, K. J. (2008). Fossil pollen as a guide to conservation in the Galapagos. Science (New York, N.Y.), 322(5905), 1206.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Massari, M., Gianfrate, G., & Zanetti, L. (2016). Corporate Valuation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Schiff, D., Kesari, S., & Wen, P. Y. (Eds.). (2008). Cancer Neurology In Clinical Practice: Neurologic Complications of Cancer and Its Treatment (Second Edition). Humana Press.
A chapter in an edited book
Bider, I., Perjons, E., & Elias, M. (2012). Untangling the Dynamic Structure of an Enterprise by Applying a Fractal Approach to Business Processes. In K. Sandkuhl, U. Seigerroth, & J. Stirna (Eds.), The Practice of Enterprise Modeling: 5th IFIP WG 8.1 Working Conference, PoEM 2012, Rostock, Germany, November 7-8, 2012. Proceedings (pp. 61–75). 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 Futures.

Blog post
Andrew, D. (2015, February 12). The Science Of Redheads. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/science-redheads0/

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. (2008). Transportation Security: TSA Has Developed a Risk-Based Covert Testing Program, but Could Better Mitigate Aviation Security Vulnerabilities Identified Through Covert Tests (GAO-08-958). 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
Neil, S. (2012). A turn from the worst: Leadership influences on the successful turnaround of a high-poverty school [Doctoral dissertation]. Capella University.

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
St. John Kelly, E. (1999, January 17). F.Y.I. New York Times, 142.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bloch, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Bloch, 2008; Moret & Schmid-Hempel, 2001).

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

  • Two authors: (Moret & Schmid-Hempel, 2001)
  • Three authors: (Huang et al., 2006)
  • 6 or more authors: (van Leeuwen et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleFutures
AbbreviationFutures
ISSN (print)0016-3287
ScopeBusiness and International Management
Development
Sociology and Political Science

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