How to format your references using the MIS Quarterly citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for MIS Quarterly (MISQ). 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

Bacon, D. 2007. “Physics. Does Our Universe Allow for Robust Quantum Computation?,” Science (New York, N.Y.) (317:5846), pp. 1876–1877.

A journal article with 2 authors

Wilson, R. I., and Nicoll, R. A. 2002. “Endocannabinoid Signaling in the Brain,” Science (New York, N.Y.) (296:5568), pp. 678–682.

A journal article with 3 authors

Feurer, T., Vaughan, J. C., and Nelson, K. A. 2003. “Spatiotemporal Coherent Control of Lattice Vibrational Waves,” Science (New York, N.Y.) (299:5605), pp. 374–377.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Inoue, K., Kohda, T., Sugimoto, M., Sado, T., Ogonuki, N., Matoba, S., Shiura, H., Ikeda, R., Mochida, K., Fujii, T., Sawai, K., Otte, A. P., Tian, X. C., Yang, X., Ishino, F., Abe, K., and Ogura, A. 2010. “Impeding Xist Expression from the Active X Chromosome Improves Mouse Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer,” Science (New York, N.Y.) (330:6003), pp. 496–499.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Stevens, B. A., and Roediger, E. 2016. Breaking Negative Relationship Patterns, Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Petrosino, A. (ed.). 2013. Image Analysis and Processing – ICIAP 2013: 17th International Conference, Naples, Italy, September 9-13, 2013. Proceedings, Part I, (Vol. 8156), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Bilo, R. A. C., Robben, S. G. F., and van Rijn, R. R. 2010. “The Extremities,” in Forensic Aspects of Pediatric Fractures: Differentiating Accidental Trauma from Child Abuse, S. G. F. Robben and R. R. Rijn (eds.), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 79–106.

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 MIS Quarterly.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J. 2015. “NASA Paid This Guy $18,000 To Lie In A Bed For 70 Days,” IFLScience, IFLScience, September 29. (, accessed October 30, 2018).

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. 1983. “U.S. Preparations for the 1983 Regional Administrative Radio Conference,” No. 120767, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 8.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Zamora, L. 2017. “Azura Digital Health: Scheduling Application and Prescription Service for Women’s Health,” Doctoral dissertation, Doctoral dissertation, Long Beach, CA: 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

Kepner, T. 2016. “Heavier Bullpen Use Unlikely Outside Postseason,” New York Times, p. B14.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bacon 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Bacon 2007; Wilson and Nicoll 2002).

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

Two authors: (Wilson and Nicoll 2002)
Three or more authors: (Inoue et al. 2010)

About the journal

Full journal title	MIS Quarterly
Abbreviation	MIS Q
ISSN (print)	0276-7783
Scope	Management Information Systems Computer Science Applications Information Systems Information Systems and Management