How to format your references using the Information Retrieval citation style

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

Seeman, P. (2004). Comment on “Diverse psychotomimetics act through a common signaling pathway.” Science (New York, N.Y.), 305(5681), 180; author reply 180.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gray, R. A., & Wikswo, J. P. (2011). Cardiovascular disease: several small shocks beat one big one. Nature, 475(7355), 181–182.

A journal article with 3 authors

Petersen, J., Volz, J., & Rauschenbeutel, A. (2014). Nanophotonics. Chiral nanophotonic waveguide interface based on spin-orbit interaction of light. Science (New York, N.Y.), 346(6205), 67–71.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Knight, T. M., McCoy, M. W., Chase, J. M., McCoy, K. A., & Holt, R. D. (2005). Trophic cascades across ecosystems. Nature, 437(7060), 880–883.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Müller, B., & Van de Voorde, M. (2017). Nanoscience and Nanotechnology for Human Health. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Marinos, L., & Askoxylakis, I. (Eds.). (2013). Human Aspects of Information Security, Privacy, and Trust: First International Conference, HAS 2013, Held as Part of HCI International 2013, Las Vegas, NV, USA, July 21-26, 2013. Proceedings (Vol. 8030). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Gullà, F., Ceccacci, S., Germani, M., & Cavalieri, L. (2015). Design Adaptable and Adaptive User Interfaces: A Method to Manage the Information. In B. Andò, P. Siciliano, V. Marletta, & A. Monteriù (Eds.), Ambient Assisted Living: Italian Forum 2014 (pp. 47–58). Cham: 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 Information Retrieval.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, July 17). Robots Could Soon Be Controlled By Bacteria. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/bacteria-could-soon-control-brains-robots/. 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. (2015). Federal Aviation Administration: Commercial Space Launch Industry Developments Present Multiple Challenges (No. GAO-15-706). Washington, DC: 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

Moody, V. J. (2012). Examining leadership styles and employee engagement in the public and private sectors (Doctoral dissertation). University of Phoenix, Phoenix, 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

St. John Kelly, E. (1993, December 5). PLAYING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. New York Times, p. 1317.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Seeman 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Gray and Wikswo 2011; Seeman 2004).

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

Two authors: (Gray and Wikswo 2011)
Three or more authors: (Knight et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Information Retrieval
Abbreviation	Inf. Retr. Boston.
ISSN (print)	1386-4564
ISSN (online)	1573-7659
Scope	Information Systems Library and Information Sciences