How to format your references using the IT Professional citation style

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

[1]

A. F. Dernburg, “Molecular biology. RNA plays meiotic matchmaker,” Science, vol. 336, no. 6082, pp. 681–682, May 2012.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

R. Galun and O. K. Ole-MoiYoi, “Obituary: Thomas Risley Odhiambo (1931-2003),” Nature, vol. 425, no. 6954, p. 142, Sep. 2003.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

D. Achlioptas, A. Naor, and Y. Peres, “Rigorous location of phase transitions in hard optimization problems,” Nature, vol. 435, no. 7043, pp. 759–764, Jun. 2005.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Y. Hua, M. Zhu, Y. Wang, Z. Xie, and M. Li, “A hybrid method for identification of structural domains,” Sci. Rep., vol. 4, p. 7476, Dec. 2014.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

S. J. Patterson and J. M. Radtke, Strategic Communications for Nonprofit Organizations. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2009.

An edited book

[1]

Y. Waghid, Educational Technology and Pedagogic Encounters: Democratic Education in Potentiality, vol. 69. in Educational Futures, Rethinking Theory and Practice, vol. 69. Rotterdam: SensePublishers, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

M. Fioranelli, C. Lanzillo, and F. Peverini, “Coronary Pathophysiology,” in CT Evaluation of Coronary Artery Disease, M. Fioranelli and D. A. Dowe, Eds., Milano: Springer, 2009, pp. 53–57.

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 IT Professional.

Blog post

[1]

J. Davis, “Ancient Giant Flightless Goose Likely Used Its Wings To Batter Opponents Instead,” IFLScience, Jan. 16, 2017. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ancient-giant-flightless-goose-likely-used-its-wings-to-batter-opponents-instead/ (accessed Oct. 30, 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, “Acquisition Workforce: DOT Lacks Data, Oversight, and Strategic Focus Needed to Address Significant Workforce Challenges,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, GAO-13-117, Jan. 2013.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

D. H. Edwards, “Why Do They Get High?: An Examination of Social Bond Theory and Substance Use in College,” Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA, 2017.

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]

K. Kelly, “New Concern That Politeness Is a Lost Art in the Office,” New York Times, p. 101, Jan. 18, 2004.

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	IT Professional
Abbreviation	IT Prof.
ISSN (print)	1520-9202
Scope	Computer Science Applications Hardware and Architecture Software

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