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

Zamir, D. (2014) ‘Botany. A wake-up call with coffee’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 345(6201), 1124.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kashefi, K. and Lovley, D. R. (2003) ‘Extending the upper temperature limit for life’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 301(5635), 934.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tucker, S. A., Hanuscin, D. L. and Bearnes, C. J. (2008) ‘The pipeline. Igniting girls’ interest in science’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 319(5870), 1621–2.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Cui, X. D., Primak, A., Zarate, X., Tomfohr, J., Sankey, O. F., Moore, A. L., Moore, T. A., et al. (2001) ‘Reproducible measurement of single-molecule conductivity’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 294(5542), 571–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

McDonald, A. G. and Magande, H. L. (2012) Introduction to Thermo-Fluids Systems Design. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Guthoff, R. F. and Katowitz, J. A. (eds.) (2010) Oculoplastics and Orbit: Aesthetic and Functional Oculofacial Plastic Problem-Solving in the 21st Century. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Rasse, A., Perronne, J.-M., Muller, P.-A. and Thirion, B. (2006) ‘Using Process Algebra to Validate Behavioral Aspects of Object-Oriented Models’, in J.-M. Bruel (ed.), Satellite Events at the MoDELS 2005 Conference: MoDELS 2005 International Workshops Doctoral Symposium, Educators Symposium Montego Bay, Jamaica, October 2-7, 2005 Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 39–47.

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. (2014, August 7) Study Indicates Pregnancy Stress Can Affect Four Generations [online]. IFLScienceIFLScience. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/study-indicates-pregnancy-stress-can-affect-four-generations/ [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 (2002) Social Security Administration: Fugitive Felon Program Could Benefit from Better Use of Technology ( No. GAO-02-346). 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

Moreau, E. L. (2014) Sailing on a Sea of Hope: Exploring the Impact of Federal Consolidation on Individual Identification and Organizational Identity. Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University, Washington, DC.

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

Murphy, M. J. O. (2016, January 1) ‘Friday File: When the Ball First Dropped on New Year’s Eve’, New York Times, C26.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Zamir, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Kashefi and Lovley, 2003; Zamir, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Kashefi and Lovley, 2003)
Three authors: (Tucker, Hanuscin, and Bearnes, 2008)
6 or more authors: (Cui et al., 2001)

About the journal

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

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