How to format your references using the International Journal of Science Education citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for International Journal of Science Education. 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	Download the output style file
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

Mayhew, J. E. W. (2003). Neuroscience. A measured look at neuronal oxygen consumption. Science (New York, N.Y.), 299(5609), 1023–1024.

A journal article with 2 authors

Pagliarini, R. A., & Xu, T. (2003). A genetic screen in Drosophila for metastatic behavior. Science (New York, N.Y.), 302(5648), 1227–1231.

A journal article with 3 authors

Stuphorn, V., Taylor, T. L., & Schall, J. D. (2000). Performance monitoring by the supplementary eye field. Nature, 408(6814), 857–860.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Moon, S. H., Park, S. J., Hwang, Y. J., Lee, D.-K., Cho, Y., Kim, D.-W., & Min, B. K. (2014). Printable, wide band-gap chalcopyrite thin films for power generating window applications. Scientific Reports, 4, 4408.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Popescu, D., Gharbi, A., Stefanoiu, D., & Borne, P. (2017). Process Control Design for Industrial Applications. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Scott, J. (2015). Expert Oracle Application Express (N. Buytaert, K. Cannell, M. D’Souza, D. Gault, D. Gielis, R. Hartman, D. Kubicek, R. Mattamal, D. McGhan, F. Mignault, T. Petrus, J. Rimblas, & C. Ruepprich, Eds.). Apress.

A chapter in an edited book

Borretti, C., Degrace, J.-N., & Cova, P. (2012). The French Vigilance System. Contributing to the Reduction of Disaster Risks in France. In M. Golnaraghi (Ed.), Institutional Partnerships in Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems: A Compilation of Seven National Good Practices and Guiding Principles (pp. 63–93). Springer.

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 International Journal of Science Education.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, July 14). New Horizons Finally Gets Up Close With Pluto – For 15 Minutes. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/new-horizons-finally-gets-close-pluto-15-minutes/

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. (1982). NSF Experiment in Research Grant Administration Promising (PAD-82-7). 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

Narita, D. (2008). Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) and climate change mitigation: An analysis of economic optimality and policy making [Doctoral dissertation]. Columbia University.

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

Koblin, J., & Barnes, B. (2017, June 19). A Lavish Emmy Campaign. New York Times, B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Mayhew, 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Mayhew, 2003; Pagliarini & Xu, 2003).

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

Two authors: (Pagliarini & Xu, 2003)
Three authors: (Stuphorn et al., 2000)
6 or more authors: (Moon et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	International Journal of Science Education
Abbreviation	Int. J. Sci. Educ.
ISSN (print)	0950-0693
ISSN (online)	1464-5289
Scope	Education

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