How to format your references using the Reading and Writing citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Reading and Writing. 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
Ashcroft, F. M. (2006). From molecule to malady. Nature, 440(7083), 440–447.
A journal article with 2 authors
Brucker, R. M., & Bordenstein, S. R. (2013). The hologenomic basis of speciation: gut bacteria cause hybrid lethality in the genus Nasonia. Science (New York, N.Y.), 341(6146), 667–669.
A journal article with 3 authors
Sudhakar, Y. A., Verma, R. K., & Pawar, S. C. (2014). Type IV collagen α1-chain noncollagenous domain blocks MMP-2 activation both in-vitro and in-vivo. Scientific reports, 4, 4136.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Oxley, D. R., Smith, K. B., Alford, J. R., Hibbing, M. V., Miller, J. L., Scalora, M., et al. (2008). Political attitudes vary with physiological traits. Science (New York, N.Y.), 321(5896), 1667–1670.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Bisen, P. S., & Raghuvanshi, R. (2013). Emerging Epidemics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Olivares-Tirado, P. (2014). Trends and Factors in Japan’s Long-Term Care Insurance System: Japan’s 10-year Experience. (N. Tamiya, Ed.). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Budiasa, I. W., & Kato, H. (2016). A Participatory Approach to Enhance Multistakeholders’ Participation in the Saba River Basin. In K. Nakagami, J. Kubota, & B. I. Setiawan (Eds.), Sustainable Water Management: New Perspectives, Design, and Practices (pp. 67–80). Singapore: 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 Reading and Writing.

Blog post
Hale, T. (2017, January 6). Egyptian Mummy Thought To Be A Bird Turns Out To Be Human Fetus. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/egyptian-mummy-thought-to-be-a-bird-turns-out-to-be-human-fetus/. 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. (2014). Fiscal Year 2014 Agreed-Upon Procedures: Excise Tax Distributions to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and the Highway Trust Fund (No. GAO-15-152R). 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
Garcia, M. (2015). College preparedness program for high school students in South Los Angeles, California: A grant proposal (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
Brantley, B. (2016, December 14). The Devil Went Down to Chelsea. New York Times, p. C5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ashcroft 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Ashcroft 2006; Brucker and Bordenstein 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Brucker and Bordenstein 2013)
  • Three or more authors: (Oxley et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleReading and Writing
AbbreviationRead. Writ.
ISSN (print)0922-4777
ISSN (online)1573-0905
ScopeNeuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
Education
Linguistics and Language
Speech and Hearing

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