How to format your references using the Information Retrieval Journal citation style

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

Moritz, M. A. (2012). Wildfires ignite debate on global warming. Nature, 487(7407), 273.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tripati, A., & Elderfield, H. (2005). Deep-sea temperature and circulation changes at the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Science (New York, N.Y.), 308(5730), 1894–1898.

A journal article with 3 authors

Wolfe, C. J., Okubo, P. G., & Shearer, P. M. (2003). Mantle fault zone beneath Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii. Science (New York, N.Y.), 300(5618), 478–480.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Savolainen, P., Zhang, Y.-P., Luo, J., Lundeberg, J., & Leitner, T. (2002). Genetic evidence for an East Asian origin of domestic dogs. Science (New York, N.Y.), 298(5598), 1610–1613.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Korn, G. A. (2013). Advanced Dynamic-System Simulation. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Poirier, D. R. (2016). Transport Phenomena in Materials Processing. (G. H. Geiger, Ed.). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Lemle, E., Bomkamp, K., Williams, M. K., & Cutbirth, E. (2015). Virtual Reality and the Future of Entertainment. In K. Bomkamp, M. K. Williams, & E. Cutbirth (Eds.), Two Bit Circus and the Future of Entertainment (pp. 25–37). 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 Journal.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2015, October 5). NASA Set To Launch Swarm of Laser-Guided Cube Satellites. IFLScience. IFLScience. 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. (1989). Aviation Safety: FAA Has Improved Its Removal Procedures for Pilot Examiners (No. RCED-89-199). 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

Cook, E. J. (2013). Older Americans Act of 1965, Title III: A policy analysis (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

Hartocollis, A. (2014, April 25). NYU Langone Restarts Emergency Room Damaged by Hurricane Sandy. New York Times, p. A20.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Moritz 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Moritz 2012; Tripati and Elderfield 2005).

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

Two authors: (Tripati and Elderfield 2005)
Three or more authors: (Savolainen et al. 2002)

About the journal

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