How to format your references using the Journal of Rural Studies citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Rural Studies. 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
Albrecht-Schmitt, T.E., 2012. Chemistry. NMR tools for determining the structure of plutonium materials. Science 336, 811–812.
A journal article with 2 authors
Koch, S.W., Knorr, A., 2001. Applied physics. Optics in the nano-world. Science 293, 2217–2218.
A journal article with 3 authors
Knudson, M.D., Desjarlais, M.P., Dolan, D.H., 2008. Shock-wave exploration of the high-pressure phases of carbon. Science 322, 1822–1825.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Huang, T., Böhlenius, H., Eriksson, S., Parcy, F., Nilsson, O., 2005. The mRNA of the Arabidopsis gene FT moves from leaf to shoot apex and induces flowering. Science 309, 1694–1696.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Ho, R.J.Y., Gibaldi, M., 2003. Biotechnology and Biopharmaceuticals. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Grazioli, L., Olivetti, L. (Eds.), 2009. Imaging of Urogenital Diseases: A Color Atlas. Springer, Milano.
A chapter in an edited book
Rexer, M., Pail, R., Fecher, T., Meyer, U., 2014. Time Variable Gravity: Contributions of GOCE Satellite Data to Monthly and Bi-monthly GRACE Gravity Field Estimates, in: Marti, U. (Ed.), Gravity, Geoid and Height Systems: Proceedings of the IAG Symposium GGHS2012, October 9-12, 2012, Venice, Italy, International Association of Geodesy Symposia. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 35–40.

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 Rural Studies.

Blog post
Andrew, E., 2013. Using the Power of Evolution to Treat Cancer [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/using-power-evolution-treat-cancer/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2011. Intercity Passenger and Freight Rail: Better Data and Communication of Uncertainties Can Help Decision Makers Understand Benefits and Trade-offs of Programs and Policies (No. GAO-11-290). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Metcalfe, A.C., 2017. Using Evolution as a Context for Teaching the Nature of Science to Diverse Student Populations: A High School Unit of Curriculum (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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
Walsh, M.W., 2016. A Warning on Bankruptcy in Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis. New York Times B3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Albrecht-Schmitt, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Albrecht-Schmitt, 2012; Koch and Knorr, 2001).

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

  • Two authors: (Koch and Knorr, 2001)
  • Three or more authors: (Huang et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of Rural Studies
AbbreviationJ. Rural Stud.
ISSN (print)0743-0167
ScopeDevelopment
Geography, Planning and Development
Sociology and Political Science

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