How to format your references using the Government and Opposition citation style

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

Macilwain C (2003) Human Cloning Claim Sparks Fear of Senate Backlash. Nature 421(6918), 3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kronenberg M and Havran WL (2014) Immunology: Oiling the Wheels of Autoimmunity. Nature 506(7486), 42–43.

A journal article with 3 authors

McAlary L, Yerbury JJ and Aquilina JA (2013) Glutathionylation Potentiates Benign Superoxide Dismutase 1 Variants to the Toxic Forms Associated with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Scientific Reports 3, 3275.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Shulz DE et al. (2000) A Neuronal Analogue of State-Dependent Learning. Nature 403(6769), 549–553.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Horváth T (2006) Understanding Lightning and Lightning Protection. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Cherifi H et al. (eds.) (2016) Complex Networks VII: Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Complex Networks CompleNet 2016. (1st ed. 2016, Vol. 644). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Hall KSK (2016) Multicultural Sensitivity in the Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction. In L I Lipshultz et al. (eds.), Management of Sexual Dysfunction in Men and Women: An Interdisciplinary Approach. New York, NY: Springer, pp. 25–29.

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 Government and Opposition.

Blog post

Fang J (2014, November 13) Ship Eating Clams Digest Wood With Gill Microbes. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ship-eating-clams-digest-wood-with-gill-microbes/ (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 (1977) Secretary of the Senate Accountability as of March 31, 1977. No. GGD-77-66. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 13 July.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Desgens-Martin V (2014) High prevalence of carcinoma in California sea lions Zalophus californianus: Evidence of a xenobiotic-induced carcinogenic cascade? 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

Murphy MJO (2015, December 17) An Early Admirer of ‘Star Wars’. New York Times, p. C32.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Macilwain 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Kronenberg and Havran 2014; Macilwain 2003).

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

Two authors: (Kronenberg and Havran 2014)
Three authors: (McAlary et al. 2013)
6 or more authors: (Shulz et al. 2000)

About the journal

Full journal title	Government and Opposition
ISSN (print)	0017-257X
ISSN (online)	1477-7053
Scope