How to format your references using the Information Systems citation style

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

[1]

C. Peng, Focus on quality, not just quantity, Nature 475 (2011) 267.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

W.J. Sutherland, M. Burgman, Policy advice: Use experts wisely, Nature 526 (2015) 317–318.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

E.V. Lonsdorf, L.E. Eberly, A.E. Pusey, Sex differences in learning in chimpanzees, Nature 428 (2004) 715–716.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

R. Orosei, S.E. Lauro, E. Pettinelli, A. Cicchetti, M. Coradini, B. Cosciotti, F. Di Paolo, E. Flamini, E. Mattei, M. Pajola, F. Soldovieri, M. Cartacci, F. Cassenti, A. Frigeri, S. Giuppi, R. Martufi, A. Masdea, G. Mitri, C. Nenna, R. Noschese, M. Restano, R. Seu, Radar evidence of subglacial liquid water on Mars, Science 361 (2018) 490–493.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

F. Kusumoto, Understanding Intracardiac EGMs, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2015.

An edited book

[1]

M. Ding, J. Eliashberg, S. Stremersch, eds., Innovation and Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry: Emerging Practices, Research, and Policies, Springer, New York, NY, 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

M. Rondeau, N. Seube, J.L. Denuf, Surveying in Hostile and Non Accessible Areas with the Bathymetric HydroBall $$^{\circledR }$$ ® Buoy, in: B. Zerr, L. Jaulin, V. Creuze, N. Debese, I. Quidu, B. Clement, A. Billon-Coat (Eds.), Quantitative Monitoring of the Underwater Environment: Results of the International Marine Science and Technology Event MOQESM´14 in Brest, France, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016: pp. 47–56.

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 Systems.

Blog post

[1]

T. Hale, Bushbaby-Inspired Robot Can Do Parkour Flips Off Vertical Walls, IFLScience (2016).

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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Review of Accounts, CAB Through June 30, 1971, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1972.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Y. Sulaiman, The Banteng and the Eagle: Indonesian Foreign Policy and the United States During the Era of Sukarno 1945-1967, Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2008.

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

[1]

L. Saslow, Grants Will Aid First-Time Home Buyers, New York Times (2006) 14LI2.

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 Systems
Abbreviation	Inf. Syst.
ISSN (print)	0306-4379
Scope	Hardware and Architecture Information Systems Software