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:

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

Bainbridge, W. S. (2003). Perceptions of science essay. Privacy and property on the Net: research questions. Science (New York, N.Y.), 302(5651), 1686–1687.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lobell, D. B., & Asner, G. P. (2003). Climate and management contributions to recent trends in U.S. agricultural yields. Science (New York, N.Y.), 299(5609), 1032.

A journal article with 3 authors

Srisonphan, S., Kim, M., & Kim, H. K. (2014). Space charge neutralization by electron-transparent suspended graphene. Scientific Reports, 4, 3764.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Sun, L., Banhart, F., Krasheninnikov, A. V., Rodríguez-Manzo, J. A., Terrones, M., & Ajayan, P. M. (2006). Carbon nanotubes as high-pressure cylinders and nanoextruders. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312(5777), 1199–1202.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Poltorak, A. I., & Lerner, P. J. (2011). Essentials of Intellectual Property. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Dalang, R. C., Dozzi, M., & Russo, F. (Eds.). (2013). Seminar on Stochastic Analysis, Random Fields and Applications VII: Centro Stefano Franscini, Ascona, May 2011 (Vol. 67). Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Zhou, J.-N., & Rong-Jun Ni. (2016). Sagittal Sections of the Tree Shrew Brain. In N. Rong-Jun (Ed.), The Tree Shrew (Tupaia belangeri chinensis) Brain in Stereotaxic Coordinates (pp. 499–571). 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

Andrew, E. (2015, October 14). Why More Scientists Are Needed In The Public Square. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/why-more-scientists-are-needed-public-square/

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. (2006). Small Business Innovation Research: Agencies Need to Strengthen Efforts to Improve the Completeness, Consistency, and Accuracy of Awards Data (GAO-07-38). 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

Winhusen, E. R. (2001). Precambrian Seawater Temperature Analysis Using Oxygen Isotopes from Hamersley Carbonates, Western Australia [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Cincinnati.

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

Detrick, B. (2017, July 6). Photographer of the Skateboarding Set. New York Times, D4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bainbridge, 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Bainbridge, 2003; Lobell & Asner, 2003).

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

Two authors: (Lobell & Asner, 2003)
Three authors: (Srisonphan et al., 2014)
6 or more authors: (Sun et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Informetrics
Abbreviation	J. Informetr.
ISSN (print)	1751-1577
Scope	Computer Science Applications Library and Information Sciences