How to format your references using the Journal of Informetrics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Informetrics. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Deshaies, R. J. (2014). Structural biology: Corralling a protein-degradation regulator. Nature, 512(7513), 145–146.
A journal article with 2 authors
Barkana, R., & Loeb, A. (2003). Spectral signature of cosmological infall of gas around the first quasars. Nature, 421(6921), 341–343.
A journal article with 3 authors
Komatsu, K., Murata, M., & Murata, Y. (2005). Encapsulation of molecular hydrogen in fullerene C60 by organic synthesis. Science (New York, N.Y.), 307(5707), 238–240.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Turchin, P., Oksanen, L., Ekerholm, P., Oksanen, T., & Henttonen, H. (2000). Are lemmings prey or predators? Nature, 405(6786), 562–565.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Chen, W.-Y. (2013). NeuroInvesting. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Tsihrintzis, G. A., & Jain, L. C. (Eds.). (2008). Multimedia Services in Intelligent Environments: Advanced Tools and Methodologies (Vol. 120). Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Reichenbächer, M., & Popp, J. (2012). Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR). In J. Popp (Ed.), Challenges in Molecular Structure Determination (pp. 215–312). 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 Journal of Informetrics.

Blog post
O`Callaghan, J. (2016, July 20). Scientists Manage To Store Data Using Single Atoms. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/scientists-store-data-using-single-atoms/

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. (2013). Transit Asset Management: Additional Research on Capital Investment Effects Could Help Transit Agencies Optimize Funding (GAO-13-571). 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
Rossi, G. (2010). Anesthesiology, geriatric surgery, and the risk of post-operative cognitive dysfunction [Doctoral dissertation]. California State University, Long Beach.

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
Gustines, G. G. (2016, February 14). These Superheros Come With Lipstick. New York Times, ST8.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Deshaies, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Barkana & Loeb, 2003; Deshaies, 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Barkana & Loeb, 2003)
  • Three authors: (Komatsu et al., 2005)
  • 6 or more authors: (Turchin et al., 2000)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of Informetrics
AbbreviationJ. Informetr.
ISSN (print)1751-1577
ScopeComputer Science Applications
Library and Information Sciences

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