How to format your references using the Language and Communication citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Language and Communication. 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

DeLong, E.F., 2007. Microbiology. Life on the thermodynamic edge. Science 317, 327–328.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tang, S., Presgraves, D.C., 2009. Evolution of the Drosophila nuclear pore complex results in multiple hybrid incompatibilities. Science 323, 779–782.

A journal article with 3 authors

Liang, Y., Wu, D., Fu, R., 2013. Carbon microfibers with hierarchical porous structure from electrospun fiber-like natural biopolymer. Sci. Rep. 3, 1119.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Albert, I., Mavrich, T.N., Tomsho, L.P., Qi, J., Zanton, S.J., Schuster, S.C., Pugh, B.F., 2007. Translational and rotational settings of H2A.Z nucleosomes across the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. Nature 446, 572–576.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Decreusefond, L., Moyal, P., 2012. Stochastic Modeling and Analysis of Telecom Networks. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Pánek, T., Hradecký, J. (Eds.), 2016. Landscapes and Landforms of the Czech Republic, 1st ed. 2016. ed, World Geomorphological Landscapes. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Gronau, H.-D., Langmann, H.-H., Schleicher, D., 2011. Programme, in: Gronau, H.-D., Langmann, H.-H., Schleicher, D. (Eds.), 50th IMO - 50 Years of International Mathematical Olympiads. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 27–45.

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 Language and Communication.

Blog post

Fang, J., 2014. Hundreds of Erupting Methane Plumes Discovered Along U.S. East Coast [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/environment/hundreds-erupting-methane-plumes-discovered-along-us-east-coast/ (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, 1997. FCC: The Local Multipoint Distribution Service (No. OGC-98-3). 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

Gowetski, D.B., 2012. Manipulation of DNA topology using an artificial DNA-looping protein (Doctoral dissertation). University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD.

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

Stephens, J., 2017. Secrets of the Metropolis. New York Times BR21.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (DeLong, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (DeLong, 2007; Tang and Presgraves, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Tang and Presgraves, 2009)
Three or more authors: (Albert et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	Language and Communication
Abbreviation	Lang. Commun.
ISSN (print)	0271-5309
Scope	Language and Linguistics Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Social Psychology Linguistics and Language Communication