How to format your references using the Information citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Information. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Smolke, C.D. Cell Biology. It’s the DNA That Counts. Science 2009, 324, 1156–1157.

A journal article with 2 authors

Steele, E.J.; Blanden, R.V. Lamarck and Antibody Genes. Science 2000, 288, 2318d–2319d.

A journal article with 3 authors

London, A.J.; Kimmelman, J.; Emborg, M.E. Research Ethics. Beyond Access vs. Protection in Trials of Innovative Therapies. Science 2010, 328, 829–830.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Sun, Y.; Wang, J.; Zhao, W.; Tian, M.; Singh, M.; Chan, M.H.W. Voltage-Current Properties of Superconducting Amorphous Tungsten Nanostrips. Sci. Rep. 2013, 3, 2307.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

zur Hausen, H. Infections Causing Human Cancer; Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA: Weinheim, FRG, 2006; ISBN 9783527609314.

An edited book

Lewis, J.R. AdvancED CSS; Moscovitz, M., Ed.; Apress: Berkeley, CA, 2009; ISBN 9781430219323.

A chapter in an edited book

Azmy, N.; Merz, S.; Weidenbach, C. A Rigorous Correctness Proof for Pastry. In Abstract State Machines, Alloy, B, TLA, VDM, and Z: 5th International Conference, ABZ 2016, Linz, Austria, May 23-27, 2016, Proceedings; Butler, M., Schewe, K.-D., Mashkoor, A., Biro, M., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; pp. 86–101 ISBN 9783319335995.

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 Information.

Blog post

Luntz, S. Cone Snail Pain Killers Could Be 100 Times As Effective As Morphine Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/cone-snail-pain-killers-could-be-100-times-effective-morphine/ (accessed on 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 Space Station: Russian Commitment and Cost Control Problems; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1999;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Klochko, K. An Empirical Re-Evaluation of the Boron Isotope/PH Proxy in Marine Carbonates. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park: College Park, MD, 2009.

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

Bosman, J.; Harmon, A.; Hauser, C.; Bidgood, J.; Astor, M. Friends and Relatives Share Memories About the Las Vegas Shooting Victims. New York Times 2017, A18.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Information
Abbreviation	Information (Basel)
ISSN (online)	2078-2489
Scope	Information Systems