How to format your references using the Research in Post-Compulsory Education citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Research in Post-Compulsory Education. 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

Hillmyer, Marc A. 2007. “Materials Science. Micelles Made to Order.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 317 (5838): 604–605.

A journal article with 2 authors

Chang, G., and C. B. Roth. 2001. “Structure of MsbA from E. Coli: A Homolog of the Multidrug Resistance ATP Binding Cassette (ABC) Transporters.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 293 (5536): 1793–1800.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kim, Scott, Peter Ubel, and Raymond De Vries. 2009. “Pruning the Regulatory Tree.” Nature 457 (7229): 534–535.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Song, Qinghai, Zhiyuan Gu, Shuai Liu, and Shumin Xiao. 2014. “Coherent Destruction of Tunneling in Chaotic Microcavities via Three-State Anti-Crossings.” Scientific Reports 4 (April): 4858.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Murdoch, Iona, Sarah Turpin, Bree Johnston, Alasdair MacLullich, and Eve Losman. 2014. Geriatric Emergencies. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Sirca, Simon. 2012. Computational Methods for Physicists: Compendium for Students. Edited by Martin Horvat. Graduate Texts in Physics. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Peng, Ri-He, Ai-Sheng Xiong, Yong Xue, Xiao-Yan Fu, Feng Gao, Wei Zhao, Yong-Sheng Tian, and Quan-Hong Yao. 2010. “A Profile of Ring-Hydroxylating Oxygenases That Degrade Aromatic Pollutants.” In Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology Volume 206, edited by David M. Whitacre, 65–94. Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. New York, NY: 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 Research in Post-Compulsory Education.

Blog post

Andrew, Elise. 2015. “Why Is the Universe Accelerating?” IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/why-universe-accelerating/.

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. 2008. Aviation Safety: FAA Has Taken Steps to Determine That It Has Made Correct Medical Certification Decisions. GAO-08-997. 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

McLean, Marsha Renee. 2010. “Analyzing the Relationship of Geographic Mobility and Institutional Prestige to Career Advancement of Women in Academic Medicine Pursuing Midcareer-, Senior-, or Executive-Level Administrative Positions: Implications for Career Advancement Strategies.” Doctoral dissertation, Washington, DC: George Washington 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

Shpigel, Ben. 2016. “So Many Turnovers, Jets Lose Count, and the Game.” New York Times, September 26.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hillmyer 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Hillmyer 2007; Chang and Roth 2001).

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

Two authors: (Chang and Roth 2001)
Three authors: (Kim, Ubel, and De Vries 2009)
4 or more authors: (Song et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Research in Post-Compulsory Education
ISSN (print)	1359-6748
ISSN (online)	1747-5112
Scope	Education