How to format your references using the Government Information Quarterly citation style

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

Ashcroft, F. M. (2006). From molecule to malady. Nature, 440(7083), 440–447.

A journal article with 2 authors

Christensen, J. H., & Christensen, O. B. (2003). Climate modelling: Severe summertime flooding in Europe. Nature, 421(6925), 805–806.

A journal article with 3 authors

Niethammer, P., Bastiaens, P., & Karsenti, E. (2004). Stathmin-tubulin interaction gradients in motile and mitotic cells. Science (New York, N.Y.), 303(5665), 1862–1866.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Dalgarno, S. J., Tucker, S. A., Bassil, D. B., & Atwood, J. L. (2005). Fluorescent guest molecules report ordered inner phase of host capsules in solution. Science (New York, N.Y.), 309(5743), 2037–2039.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Minuth, W. W., Strehl, R., & Schumacher, K. (2005). Tissue Engineering. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Davim, J. P. (Ed.). (2010). Surface Integrity in Machining. Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Assis, F. (2016). An Algorithm for k-Connectivity Under Pure SINR Model. In N. Mitton, V. Loscri, & A. Mouradian (Eds.), Ad-hoc, Mobile, and Wireless Networks: 15th International Conference, ADHOC-NOW 2016, Lille, France, July 4-6, 2016, Proceedings (pp. 65–78). Springer International Publishing.

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 Information Quarterly.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, June 11). The Real Science On Wind Farms, Noise, Infrasound And Health. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/real-science-wind-farms-noise-infrasound-and-health/

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. (1973). Protecting the Consumer From Potentially Harmful Shellfish (Clams, Mussels, and Oysters) (B-164031(2)). 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

Vail, A. S. (2012). The gift of noetic image: Spontaneous imagery and psychological well-being in women with breast cancer [Doctoral dissertation]. Pacifica Graduate Institute.

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

Davidson, A. (2012, December 19). God Save the British Economy. New York Times, MM18.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ashcroft, 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Ashcroft, 2006; Christensen & Christensen, 2003).

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

Two authors: (Christensen & Christensen, 2003)
Three authors: (Niethammer et al., 2004)
6 or more authors: (Dalgarno et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Government Information Quarterly
Abbreviation	Gov. Inf. Q.
ISSN (print)	0740-624X
Scope	Law Library and Information Sciences Sociology and Political Science