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:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
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

Clarke, T. (2002). Penicillin paper restores Fleming’s healthy reputation. Nature, 419(6910), 867.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kleizen, B., & Braakman, I. (2013). Cell biology. A sweet send-off. Science (New York, N.Y.), 340(6135), 930–931.

A journal article with 3 authors

Parkinson, G. N., Lee, M. P. H., & Neidle, S. (2002). Crystal structure of parallel quadruplexes from human telomeric DNA. Nature, 417(6891), 876–880.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Zhou, C., Xu, L., Song, J., Xing, R., Xu, S., Liu, D., & Song, H. (2014). Ultrasensitive non-enzymatic glucose sensor based on three-dimensional network of ZnO-CuO hierarchical nanocomposites by electrospinning. Scientific Reports, 4, 7382.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Stahl, S. (2011). Real Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Antontsev, S. (2015). Evolution PDEs with Nonstandard Growth Conditions: Existence, Uniqueness, Localization, Blow-up (S. Shmarev, Ed.; Vol. 4). Atlantis Press.

A chapter in an edited book

Estrin, Y., Rabkin, E., Hellmig, R. J., Kazakevich, M., & Zi, A. (2006). New Applications of the SPD Concept: μSPD. In Y. T. Zhu & V. Varyukhin (Eds.), Nanostructured Materials by High-Pressure Severe Plastic Deformation (pp. 39–46). Springer Netherlands.

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

O`Callaghan, J. (2017, April 6). This Super-Earth Atmosphere Might Have Massive Implications For The Search For Life. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/this-superearth-atmosphere-might-have-massive-implications-for-the-search-for-life/

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. (2006). Weather Forecasting: National Weather Service Is Planning to Improve Service and Gain Efficiency, but Impacts of Potential Changes Are Not Yet Known (GAO-06-792). 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

Jaime, A. A. (2017). “Cockroach centuries”: The cockroach image as the conduit for the marginalized beat woman and artist in Elise Cowen’s cockroach poetry [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

Wagner, J. (2017, June 11). Lugo, Paying No Mind to His Elbow, Earns Dividends. New York Times, D5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Clarke, 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Clarke, 2002; Kleizen & Braakman, 2013).

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

Two authors: (Kleizen & Braakman, 2013)
Three authors: (Parkinson et al., 2002)
6 or more authors: (Zhou et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Futures
Abbreviation	Futures
ISSN (print)	0016-3287
Scope	Business and International Management Development Sociology and Political Science