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

Carroll, S. 2004. “Insignificance,” Nature (429:6987), p. 27.

A journal article with 2 authors

Prakash, M., and Gershenfeld, N. 2007. “Microfluidic Bubble Logic,” Science (New York, N.Y.) (315:5813), pp. 832–835.

A journal article with 3 authors

Wood, R. A., Grotzinger, J. P., and Dickson, J. A. D. 2002. “Proterozoic Modular Biomineralized Metazoan from the Nama Group, Namibia,” Science (New York, N.Y.) (296:5577), pp. 2383–2386.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Cramwinckel, M. J., Huber, M., Kocken, I. J., Agnini, C., Bijl, P. K., Bohaty, S. M., Frieling, J., Goldner, A., Hilgen, F. J., Kip, E. L., Peterse, F., van der Ploeg, R., Röhl, U., Schouten, S., and Sluijs, A. 2018. “Synchronous Tropical and Polar Temperature Evolution in the Eocene,” Nature (559:7714), pp. 382–386.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Minei, I., and Lucek, J. 2006. MPLS-Enabled Applications, Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Sundnes, J. 2006. Computing the Electrical Activity in the Heart, (Vol. 1), Monographs in Computational Science and Engineering, (G. T. Lines, X. Cai, B. F. Nielsen, K.-A. Mardal, and A. Tveito, eds.), Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Hou, C., Chang, S., Lin, J., and Song, D. 2015. “Pedicled Perforator Flaps,” in Surgical Atlas of Perforator Flaps: A Microsurgical Dissection Technique, S. Chang, J. Lin, and D. Song (eds.), Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 15–25.

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

Luntz, S. 2014. “SpaceX Unveils New Dragon Capsule That Could Carry Astronauts To The ISS,” IFLScience, IFLScience, May 30. (https://www.iflscience.com/space/spacex-unveils-new-dragon-capsule-could-carry-astronauts-iss/, 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. 1977. “Need for Additional Internal Audit Coverage in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,” No. FGMSD-78-12, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 27.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Abraham, C. 2017. “How Are Nonresident African American Fathers Involved in Their Children’s Academic Success?,” Doctoral dissertation, Doctoral dissertation, Washington, DC: George Washington University.

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

Kishkovsky, S. 2003. “Warm and Weird Toasts to Russia’s Crown Jewel; St. Petersburg Celebrates 300 Years With Everything From Pornography to Preservation,” New York Times, p. E1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Carroll 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Carroll 2004; Prakash and Gershenfeld 2007).

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

Two authors: (Prakash and Gershenfeld 2007)
Three or more authors: (Cramwinckel et al. 2018)

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

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