How to format your references using the Social Networks citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Social Networks. 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
Wright, P.A., 2010. Chemistry. Opening the door to peptide-based porous solids. Science 329, 1025–1026.
A journal article with 2 authors
Gundersen, G.G., Bretscher, A., 2003. Cell biology. Microtubule asymmetry. Science 300, 2040–2041.
A journal article with 3 authors
Ronshaugen, M., McGinnis, N., McGinnis, W., 2002. Hox protein mutation and macroevolution of the insect body plan. Nature 415, 914–917.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Freeman, C., Evans, C.D., Monteith, D.T., Reynolds, B., Fenner, N., 2001. Export of organic carbon from peat soils. Nature 412, 785.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Qiu, R.G., 2014. Service Science. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Hoque, N., Swanson, D.A. (Eds.), 2012. Opportunities and Challenges for Applied Demography in the 21st Century, Applied Demography Series. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
A chapter in an edited book
Rischpater, R., Zucker, D., 2010. Beginning Qt Development, in: Zucker, D. (Ed.), Beginning Nokia Apps Development: Qt and HTML5 for Symbian and MeeGo. Apress, Berkeley, CA, pp. 59–86.

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 Social Networks.

Blog post
Luntz, S., 2015. Are Malfunctioning Monitors Underestimating Methane Emissions? [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/environment/are-malfunctioning-monitors-underestimating-methane-emissions/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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. Aviation Security: Federal Coordination for Responding to In-flight Security Threats Has Matured, but Procedures Can Be Strengthened (No. GAO-07-891R). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
Ochoa-Bontemps, R.S., 2012. Rebuilding the Broken Mirror: An Imaginal Approach to the Multicultural Self (Doctoral dissertation). Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, 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
Pilon, M., 2014. High-Fives, Not High Reps. New York Times B12.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Wright, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Gundersen and Bretscher, 2003; Wright, 2010).

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

  • Two authors: (Gundersen and Bretscher, 2003)
  • Three or more authors: (Freeman et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal titleSocial Networks
AbbreviationSoc. Networks
ISSN (print)0378-8733
ScopeGeneral Psychology
General Social Sciences
Sociology and Political Science
Anthropology

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