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

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for International Journal of STEM 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	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

Vinković, D. (2009). Radiation-pressure mixing of large dust grains in protoplanetary disks. Nature, 459(7244), 227–229.

A journal article with 2 authors

Buschman, T. J., & Miller, E. K. (2007). Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science (New York, N.Y.), 315(5820), 1860–1862.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lee, C.-Y., Robinson, K. J., & Doe, C. Q. (2006). Lgl, Pins and aPKC regulate neuroblast self-renewal versus differentiation. Nature, 439(7076), 594–598.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Johnson, A. C., Petta, J. R., Taylor, J. M., Yacoby, A., Lukin, M. D., Marcus, C. M., et al. (2005). Triplet-singlet spin relaxation via nuclei in a double quantum dot. Nature, 435(7044), 925–928.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Davis, T. B. (2011). Audel Industrial Multi-Craft Mini-Ref. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Cherry, M. J. (Ed.). (2009). The Normativity of the Natural: Human Goods, Human Virtues, and Human Flourishing (Vol. 16). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Xue, S.-W., Tang, Y.-Y., & Zhang, L.-H. (2014). Network Organization of Information Process in Young Adults’ Brain. In F. Sun, D. Hu, & H. Liu (Eds.), Foundations and Practical Applications of Cognitive Systems and Information Processing: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Cognitive Systems and Information Processing, Beijing, China, Dec 2012 (CSIP2012) (pp. 35–43). Berlin, Heidelberg: 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 STEM Education.

Blog post

Taub, B. (2016, November 7). Nearly All Illegal Elephant Ivory Smuggled Out Of Africa Is From Recent Kills. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/nearly-all-illegal-elephant-ivory-smuggled-out-africa-recent-kills/. 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. (1991). Aircraft Maintenance: Additional FAA Oversight Needed of Aging Aircraft Repairs (Vol. II) (No. RCED-91-91B). 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

Giuseffi, F. G. (2014). Investigation of the Influence of the Socratic Method on Leadership Skills among JROTC Cadet Leaders at a Military Boarding School (Doctoral dissertation). Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO.

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

Wagner, J. (2017, July 28). A Mets Pitcher’s Call-Up From Class AA Is a Surprise to Him. New York Times, p. B9.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Vinković 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Buschman and Miller 2007; Vinković 2009).

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

Two authors: (Buschman and Miller 2007)
Three or more authors: (Johnson et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	International Journal of STEM Education
ISSN (online)	2196-7822
Scope