How to format your references using the Language citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Language. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

McKinnon, William B. 2012. Planetary science. The strangest terrestrial planet. Science (New York, N.Y.) 336.162–163.

A journal article with 2 authors

Wright, Casey W.; and Colin S. Duckett. 2009. The aryl hydrocarbon nuclear translocator alters CD30-mediated NF-kappaB-dependent transcription. Science (New York, N.Y.) 323.251–255.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ben-David, Oded.; Gil Cohen.; and Jay Fineberg. 2010. The dynamics of the onset of frictional slip. Science (New York, N.Y.) 330.211–214.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Hegerl, Gabriele C.; Thomas J. Crowley.; William T. Hyde.; and David J. Frame. 2006. Climate sensitivity constrained by temperature reconstructions over the past seven centuries. Nature 440.1029–1032.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kissell, Joe. 2009. Mac® Security Bible. Indianapolis, IN, USA: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

An edited book

Jue, Jason P. 2005. Optical Burst Switched Networks. (Ed.) Vinod M. Vokkarane. Optical Networks. Boston, MA: Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Korsholm, Ulrik.; Alexander Baklanov.; and Jens Havskov Sørensen. 2011. Status and Evaluation of Enviro-HIRLAM: Differences Between Online and Offline Models. Integrated Systems of Meso-Meteorological and Chemical Transport Models, ed. by Alexander Baklanov, Mahura Alexander, and Ranjeet Sokhi, 61–74. Berlin, Heidelberg: 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 Language.

Blog post

Andrew, Danielle. 2016. What Do Sugar And Climate Change Have In Common? Misplaced Scepticism Of The Science. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/what-do-sugar-and-climate-change-have-in-common-misplaced-scepticism-of-the-science/.

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. 2012. Early Child Care and Education: HHS and Education Are Taking Steps to Improve Workforce Data and Enhance Worker Quality. Washington, DC: 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

Blicha, Emily Ann. 2015. Music therapy program for older adults: A grant proposal. Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach doctoral dissertation.

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

Mueller, Benjamin.; A. L. Baker.; and Ashley Southall. 2017. Attempted Murder Charge in Bronx Shooting of Boy on His 5th Birthday. New York Times.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (McKinnon 2012).
This sentence cites two references (McKinnon 2012; Wright and Duckett 2009).

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

Two authors: (Wright and Duckett 2009)
Three authors: (Ben-David, Cohen, and Fineberg 2010)
4 or more authors: (Hegerl et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Language
Abbreviation	Language (Baltim.)
ISSN (print)	0097-8507
ISSN (online)	1535-0665
Scope	Language and Linguistics Linguistics and Language