How to format your references using the Rethinking History citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Rethinking History. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
Kirkpatrick, Scott. 2003. “Computer Science. Rough Times Ahead.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 299 (5607): 668–669.
A journal article with 2 authors
Hannon, Gregory J., and John J. Rossi. 2004. “Unlocking the Potential of the Human Genome with RNA Interference.” Nature 431 (7006): 371–378.
A journal article with 3 authors
Humphries, Murray M., Donald W. Thomas, and John R. Speakman. 2002. “Climate-Mediated Energetic Constraints on the Distribution of Hibernating Mammals.” Nature 418 (6895): 313–316.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
Groll, Michael, Barbara Schellenberg, André S. Bachmann, Crystal R. Archer, Robert Huber, Tracy K. Powell, Steven Lindow, Markus Kaiser, and Robert Dudler. 2008. “A Plant Pathogen Virulence Factor Inhibits the Eukaryotic Proteasome by a Novel Mechanism.” Nature 452 (7188): 755–758.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
German Geotechnical Society. 2013. Recommendations on Excavations EAB. D-69451 Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH.
An edited book
Beziau, Jean-Yves, ed. 2007. Logica Universalis: Towards a General Theory of Logic. Second Edition. Basel: Birkhäuser.
A chapter in an edited book
Gulliver, John S. 2012. “Transport in the Environment.” In Transport and Fate of Chemicals in the Environment: Selected Entries from the Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology, edited by John S. Gulliver, 65–88. 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 Rethinking History.

Blog post
Hale, Tom. 2017. “What The Hell Is This Prehistoric-Looking Prawn Fish?” IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/what-the-hell-is-this-prehistoriclooking-prawn-fish/.

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. 2007. Emergency Preparedness: Current Emergency Alert System Has Limitations, and Development of a New Integrated System Will Be Challenging. GAO-07-411. 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
Kasun, Kathleen Kilkenny. 2010. “Economic Effectiveness of Physician Organizational Models in a California Integrated Healthcare System.” Doctoral dissertation, Phoenix, AZ: University of Phoenix.

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
Grynbaum, Michael M. 2013. “For de Blasio, So Many Jobs to Fill, So Little Time.” New York Times, December 31.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Kirkpatrick 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Kirkpatrick 2003; Hannon and Rossi 2004).

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

  • Two authors: (Hannon and Rossi 2004)
  • Three authors: (Humphries, Thomas, and Speakman 2002)
  • 4 or more authors: (Groll et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleRethinking History
AbbreviationRethink. Hist.
ISSN (print)1364-2529
ISSN (online)1470-1154
ScopeHistory

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