How to format your references using the Journal of Research in Science Teaching citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 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

Williams, R. (2011). Biomarkers: warning signs. Nature, 475(7355), S5-7.

A journal article with 2 authors

O’Neill, M. J., & O’Neill, R. J. (2014). Genomics: Something to swing about. Nature, 513(7517), 174–175.

A journal article with 3 authors

Yuan, F., Depew, R., & Soltis-Muth, C. (2014). Ecosystem regime change inferred from the distribution of trace metals in Lake Erie sediments. Scientific Reports, 4, 7265.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Soubeyran, P., Kowanetz, K., Szymkiewicz, I., Langdon, W. Y., & Dikic, I. (2002). Cbl-CIN85-endophilin complex mediates ligand-induced downregulation of EGF receptors. Nature, 416(6877), 183–187.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cicek, V., & Al-Numan, B. (2011). Corrosion Chemistry. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Celletti, A., Locatelli, U., Ruggeri, T., & Strickland, E. (Eds.). (2014). Mathematical Models and Methods for Planet Earth (Vol. 6). Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Zhao, F., & Dai, F. F. (2015). Design and Analysis of QVCO with Various Coupling Techniques. In F. F. Dai (Ed.), Low-Noise Low-Power Design for Phase-Locked Loops: Multi-Phase High-Performance Oscillators (pp. 41–65). Springer International Publishing.

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 Research in Science Teaching.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2015, November 16). Experiment Proves Einstein Wrong. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/scientists-prove-spooky-action-distance-absolutely-real/

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. (1990). Army ADP Procurement: Contracting and Market Share Information (IMTEC-90-28FS). 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

Green, R. E. (2010). From Hart to Hammerstein: The music of Richard Rodgers and his evolution toward the integrated musical [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

Shear, M. D. (2017, April 28). Trump Tells N.R.A.: ‘I Am Going to Come Through for You.’ New York Times, A17.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Williams, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (O’Neill & O’Neill, 2014; Williams, 2011).

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

Two authors: (O’Neill & O’Neill, 2014)
Three authors: (Yuan et al., 2014)
6 or more authors: (Soubeyran et al., 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Research in Science Teaching
Abbreviation	J. Res. Sci. Teach.
ISSN (print)	0022-4308
ISSN (online)	1098-2736
Scope	Education