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

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

Mandavilli A (2005) India. Nature 436(7050):477.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sharon I, Banfield JF (2013) Microbiology. Genomes from metagenomics. Science 342(6162):1057–1058.

A journal article with 3 authors

Friedberg EC, Wagner R, Radman M (2002) Specialized DNA polymerases, cellular survival, and the genesis of mutations. Science 296(5573):1627–1630.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Drum CL, Yan SZ, Bard J, Shen YQ, Lu D, Soelaiman S, Grabarek Z, Bohm A, Tang WJ (2002) Structural basis for the activation of anthrax adenylyl cyclase exotoxin by calmodulin. Nature 415(6870):396–402.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Russell LCR, Hodgetts CTJ, Mahoney CPF, Castle N (2010) Disaster Rules (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK).

An edited book

Weltner K (2009) Mathematics for Physicists and Engineers: Fundamentals and Interactive Study Guide Weber WJ, Grosjean J, Schuster P, eds. (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg).

A chapter in an edited book

Guala F (2014) On the Nature of Social Kinds. Gallotti M, Michael J, eds. Perspectives on Social Ontology and Social Cognition. (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht), 57–68.

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 Research.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J (2016) Watching A Fire Burn In Space Is Pretty Cool. IFLScience. Retrieved (October 30, 2018), https://www.iflscience.com/space/watching-a-fire-burn-in-space-is-pretty-cool/.

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) Factors Affecting Concentration in the Airline Industry (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Spillman SA (2014) Is More Always Better: Comparing the Effects of Single and Multiple Learning Channels on Academic Performance. Doctoral dissertation. (University of South Florida, Tampa, FL).

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

Packer G (2010) Spheres of Influence. New York Times (November 14).

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Mandavilli 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Mandavilli 2005, Sharon and Banfield 2013).

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

Two authors: (Sharon and Banfield 2013)
Three or more authors: (Drum et al. 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Information Systems Research
Abbreviation	Inf. Syst. Res.
ISSN (print)	1047-7047
ISSN (online)	1526-5536
Scope	Computer Networks and Communications Information Systems Information Systems and Management Library and Information Sciences