How to format your references using the Post-Soviet Affairs citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Post-Soviet Affairs. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Barbier, Edward B. 2015. “Policy: Hurricane Katrina’s Lessons for the World.” Nature 524 (7565): 285–287.
A journal article with 2 authors
Ito, Takeo, and Mark Simons. 2011. “Probing Asthenospheric Density, Temperature, and Elastic Moduli below the Western United States.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 332 (6032): 947–951.
A journal article with 3 authors
Zahidi, E. M., H. Oudghiri-Hassani, and P. H. McBreen. 2001. “Formation of Thermally Stable Alkylidene Layers on a Catalytically Active Surface.” Nature 409 (6823): 1023–1026.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
Pokroy, Boaz, Sung H. Kang, L. Mahadevan, and Joanna Aizenberg. 2009. “Self-Organization of a Mesoscale Bristle into Ordered, Hierarchical Helical Assemblies.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 323 (5911): 237–240.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Chin, Eric, Dian Nel, and Sverrir Ólafsson. 2014. Problems and Solutions in Mathematical Finance. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Seckbach, Joseph, and Maud Walsh, eds. 2008. From Fossils to Astrobiology: Records of Life on Earth and Search for Extraterrestrial Biosignatures. Vol. 12. Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Militello, Vincenzo. 2016. “Legal Norms Against the Italian Mafia.” In Social Dimensions of Organised Crime: Modelling the Dynamics of Extortion Rackets, edited by Corinna Elsenbroich, David Anzola, and Nigel Gilbert, 65–81. Computational Social Sciences. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

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 Post-Soviet Affairs.

Blog post
Andrew, Elise. 2015. “Do Common Chemicals Increase Your Risk of Cancer?” IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/do-common-chemicals-increase-your-risk-cancer/.

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. 2014. Airport Funding: Aviation Industry Changes Affect Airport Development Costs and Financing. GAO-14-658T. 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
Cai, Shaobiao. 2008. “3D Numerical Modeling of Dry/Wet Contact Mechanics for Rough, Multilayered Elastic-Plastic Solid Surfaces and Effects of Hydrophilicity/Hydrophobicity During Separation with Applications.” Doctoral dissertation, Columbus, OH: Ohio State 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
Giordano, Mary Ann, and Anna M. Phillips. 2011. “Mayor Hits Nerve in Remarks On Class Sizes and Teachers.” New York Times, December 3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Barbier 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Barbier 2015; Ito and Simons 2011).

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

  • Two authors: (Ito and Simons 2011)
  • Three authors: (Zahidi, Oudghiri-Hassani, and McBreen 2001)
  • 4 or more authors: (Pokroy et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal titlePost-Soviet Affairs
ISSN (print)1060-586X
ISSN (online)1938-2855
ScopeEconomics and Econometrics
Sociology and Political Science
Political Science and International Relations

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