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

Held I (2014) Climate Change. Simplicity amid Complexity. Science (New York, N.Y.) 343(6176), 1206–1207.

A journal article with 2 authors

Vyleta NP and Jonas P (2014) Loose Coupling between Ca2+ Channels and Release Sensors at a Plastic Hippocampal Synapse. Science (New York, N.Y.) 343(6171), 665–670.

A journal article with 3 authors

Legramandi MA, Schepens B and Cavagna GA (2013) Running Humans Attain Optimal Elastic Bounce in Their Teens. Scientific Reports 3, 1310.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Murata K et al. (2000) Structural Determinants of Water Permeation through Aquaporin-1. Nature 407(6804), 599–605.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cumming D (2010) Private Equity. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Onieva JA et al. (eds.) (2008) Information Security Theory and Practices. Smart Devices, Convergence and Next Generation Networks: Second IFIP WG 11.2 International Workshop, WISTP 2008, Seville, Spain, May 13-16, 2008. Proceedings. (Vol. 5019). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Katz TR (2016) Safety, Efficacy and Predictability of SAT. In S J Linke and T Katz (eds.), Complications in Corneal Laser Surgery. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 23–30.

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

Andrew E (2015, June 15) Beyond Dinosaurs, What Would We Need To Create A Jurassic World? https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/beyond-dinosaurs-what-would-we-need-create-jurassic-world/ (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 (1995) Federal Research: Lessons Learned from the Pilot Technology Access Program. No. RCED-95-212. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 18 September.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Wilson MB (2009) Constructions of childhood found in award -winning children’s literature. Doctoral dissertation. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.

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

Greenhouse L (2005, October 12) Supreme Court Takes Up 2 Cases Challenging Powers of U.S. Regulators to Protect Wetlands. New York Times, p. A14.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Held 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Held 2014; Vyleta and Jonas 2014).

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

Two authors: (Vyleta and Jonas 2014)
Three authors: (Legramandi et al. 2013)
6 or more authors: (Murata et al. 2000)

About the journal

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