How to format your references using the PROSPECTS citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for PROSPECTS. 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
Cifelli, R. L. (2015). Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (1925-2015). Nature, 520(7546), 158.
A journal article with 2 authors
Finkel, T., & Holbrook, N. J. (2000). Oxidants, oxidative stress and the biology of ageing. Nature, 408(6809), 239–247.
A journal article with 3 authors
Luce, C. H., Abatzoglou, J. T., & Holden, Z. A. (2013). The missing mountain water: slower westerlies decrease orographic enhancement in the Pacific Northwest USA. Science (New York, N.Y.), 342(6164), 1360–1364.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Keenan, R. A., De Riva, A., Corleis, B., Hepburn, L., Licence, S., Winkler, T. H., & Mårtensson, I.-L. (2008). Censoring of autoreactive B cell development by the pre-B cell receptor. Science (New York, N.Y.), 321(5889), 696–699.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Zonnenshain, A., & Stauber, S. (2015). Managing and Engineering Complex Technological Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Werlen, B. (Ed.). (2015). Global Sustainability: Cultural Perspectives and Challenges for Transdisciplinary Integrated Research. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Greve, A., & Bremer, M. (2010). Calculation of Solar Illumination. In M. Bremer (Ed.), Thermal Design and Thermal Behaviour of Radio Telescopes and their Enclosures (pp. 85–106). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

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 PROSPECTS.

Blog post
Carpineti, A. (2016, December 7). Earth’s Day Will Be One Minute Longer In 6.7 Million Years. IFLScience. IFLScience. Accessed 30 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. (1994). Hispanics’ Schooling: Risk Factors for Dropping Out and Barriers to Resuming Their Education (No. PEMD-94-24). 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
Sampson, R. (2010). The effects of foster care on children: A comparison of 18th century through modern day foster care practices (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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
Ember, S. (2017, October 2). The Empire Of Glamour Loses a King. New York Times, p. B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Cifelli 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Cifelli 2015; Finkel and Holbrook 2000).

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

  • Two authors: (Finkel and Holbrook 2000)
  • Three or more authors: (Keenan et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titlePROSPECTS
AbbreviationProspects (Paris)
ISSN (print)0033-1538
ISSN (online)1573-9090
ScopeEducation

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