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

Huybers, P. (2011). Combined obliquity and precession pacing of late Pleistocene deglaciations. Nature, 480(7376), 229–232.

A journal article with 2 authors

Klankermayer, J., & Leitner, W. (2015). CHEMISTRY. Love at second sight for CO₂ and H₂ in organic synthesis. Science (New York, N.Y.), 350(6261), 629–630.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sta Ana, J. L., Frankel, M. S., & Berger, K. M. (2009). Biosecurity. Educating scientists about dual use. Science (New York, N.Y.), 326(5957), 1193.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Alavi, A., Hood, J. D., Frausto, R., Stupack, D. G., & Cheresh, D. A. (2003). Role of Raf in vascular protection from distinct apoptotic stimuli. Science (New York, N.Y.), 301(5629), 94–96.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rooney, T. (2010). IP Address Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Dichev, C., & Agre, G. (Eds.). (2016). Artificial Intelligence: Methodology, Systems, and Applications: 17th International Conference, AIMSA 2016, Varna, Bulgaria, September 7-10, 2016, Proceedings (Vol. 9883). Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Demetrescu, C., & Italiano, G. F. (2013). The Quest for the Shortest Route. In G. Ausiello & R. Petreschi (Eds.), The Power of Algorithms: Inspiration and Examples in Everyday Life (pp. 85–105). 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

Taub, B. (2016, May 12). Being Vegetarian Could Help You Live Longer. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/do-vegetarians-really-live-longer-maybe-suggests-new-study/

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. (1998). Student Loans: Limited Information Is Available to Determine How Students’ College Debt Affects Their School and Lifestyle Decisions (HEHS-98-97R). 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

Zhuang, S. (2008). Enhancing Implicit Finite Element Sheet Forming Simulation [Doctoral dissertation]. Ohio State 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

Paulson, M. (2017, June 11). ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and ‘Oslo’ Top Tonys. New York Times, C1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Huybers, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Huybers, 2011; Klankermayer & Leitner, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Klankermayer & Leitner, 2015)
Three authors: (Sta Ana et al., 2009)
6 or more authors: (Alavi et al., 2003)

About the journal

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