How to format your references using the Information Systems Frontiers citation style

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

Ferry, G. (2010). The making of an exceptional scientist. Nature, 464(7293), 1268–1270.

A journal article with 2 authors

Class, C., & Goldstein, S. L. (2005). Evolution of helium isotopes in the Earth’s mantle. Nature, 436(7054), 1107–1112.

A journal article with 3 authors

Howes, P. D., Chandrawati, R., & Stevens, M. M. (2014). Bionanotechnology. Colloidal nanoparticles as advanced biological sensors. Science (New York, N.Y.), 346(6205), 1247390.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Ono, T., Kumamoto, A., Nakagawa, H., Yamaguchi, Y., Oshigami, S., Yamaji, A., et al. (2009). Lunar radar sounder observations of subsurface layers under the nearside maria of the Moon. Science (New York, N.Y.), 323(5916), 909–912.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Neward, T., Erickson, A. C., Crowell, T., & Minerich, R. (2010). Professional F# 2.0. Indianapolis, IN, USA: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

An edited book

Schomburg, D., & Schomburg, I. (Eds.). (2005). Springer Handbook of Enzymes: Class 1 • Oxidoreductases VIII EC 1.5 (Second Edition., Vol. 23). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Clair, R. P. (2013). Wednesday, August 11, 2010—West Lafayette, IN. In R. P. Clair (Ed.), Zombie Seed and the Butterfly Blues: A Case of Social Justice (pp. 25–28). Rotterdam: SensePublishers.

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 Frontiers.

Blog post

Luntz, S. (2017, February 15). Humans Are Changing The Planet Hundreds Of Times Faster Than Natural Forces. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/humans-are-changing-the-planet-hundreds-of-times-faster-than-natural-forces/. 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. (1988). Attack Warning: NORAD’s Communications System Segment Replacement Program Should Be Reassessed (No. IMTEC-89-1). 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

Johnson, N. J. (2017). Queered (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

Crow, K. (2002, July 7). I Say Yip-Yip, You Say Ruff-Ruff: Small Dogs Lobby for Own Dog Run. New York Times, p. 145.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ferry 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Class and Goldstein 2005; Ferry 2010).

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

Two authors: (Class and Goldstein 2005)
Three or more authors: (Ono et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	Information Systems Frontiers
Abbreviation	Inf. Syst. Front.
ISSN (print)	1387-3326
ISSN (online)	1572-9419
Scope	Computer Networks and Communications Information Systems Software Theoretical Computer Science

Research and Writing Guides