How to format your references using the Political Studies citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Political 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:

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

Magistretti, P. J. (2009) ‘Neuroscience. Low-cost travel in neurons’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 325(5946), 1349–51.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gagliardi, L. and Roos, B. O. (2005) ‘Quantum chemical calculations show that the uranium molecule U2 has a quintuple bond’, Nature, 433(7028), 848–51.

A journal article with 3 authors

Meierbachtol, T., Harper, J. and Humphrey, N. (2013) ‘Basal drainage system response to increasing surface melt on the Greenland ice sheet’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 341(6147), 777–9.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Montelli, R., Nolet, G., Dahlen, F. A., Masters, G., Engdahl, E. R. and Hung, S.-H. (2004) ‘Finite-frequency tomography reveals a variety of plumes in the mantle’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 303(5656), 338–43.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Mackenzie, B., Njikizana, T., Coetsee, D., Chamboko, R., Colyvas, B., Hanekom, B. and Selbst, E. (2014) 2014 Interpretation and Application of International Financial Reporting Standards. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Besold, T. R., Schorlemmer, M. and Smaill, A. (eds.) (2015) Computational Creativity Research: Towards Creative Machines. Paris: Atlantis Press.

A chapter in an edited book

Kumar, P. (2013) ‘From Punch to Mat^lvālā: Transcultural Lives of a Literary Format’, in H. Harder and B. Mittler (eds.), Asian Punches: A Transcultural Affair. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 75–110.

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 Political Studies.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, January 14) Insecticide-Drenched Nets Could Have Encouraged The Emergence Of Resistant Hybrid ‘Super’ Mosquitoes [online]. IFLScienceIFLScience. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/insecticide-drenched-nets-could-have-encouraged-emergence-resistant-hybrid-super/ [Accessed30 October 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 (1995) Federal Research: Lessons Learned from the Pilot Technology Access Program ( No. RCED-95-212). 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

Narita, D. (2008) Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) and climate change mitigation: An analysis of economic optimality and policy making. Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York, NY.

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

Eligon, J. and Cacciola, S. (2016, September 12) ‘Player’s Protest Revives a Spirit of Activism From the Days of Ali’, New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Magistretti, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Gagliardi and Roos, 2005; Magistretti, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Gagliardi and Roos, 2005)
Three authors: (Meierbachtol, Harper, and Humphrey, 2013)
6 or more authors: (Montelli et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Political Studies
Abbreviation	Polit. Stud.
ISSN (print)	0032-3217
ISSN (online)	1467-9248
Scope	Sociology and Political Science