How to format your references using the Sociological Theory citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Sociological Theory. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Smaglik, Paul. 2004. “Patching a Leaky Pipeline.” Nature 427(6975):657.

A journal article with 2 authors

Shaye, Daniel D., and Iva Greenwald. 2002. “Endocytosis-Mediated Downregulation of LIN-12/Notch upon Ras Activation in Caenorhabditis Elegans.” Nature 420(6916):686–90.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jenkins, Noah, Jennifer R. Saam, and Susan E. Mango. 2006. “CYK-4/GAP Provides a Localized Cue to Initiate Anteroposterior Polarity upon Fertilization.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 313(5791):1298–1301.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Liu, Pan, Haiwei Zhang, Min Lv, Mandong Hu, Zhong Li, Chao Gao, Ping Xu, and Cuiqing Ma. 2014. “Enzymatic Production of 5-Aminovalerate from L-Lysine Using L-Lysine Monooxygenase and 5-Aminovaleramide Amidohydrolase.” Scientific Reports 4:5657.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ferguson, Niels, Bruce Schneier, and Tadayoshi Kohno. 2015. Cryptography Engineering. Indianapolis, Indiana: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

An edited book

Cohen, Laurie E., ed. 2016. Growth Hormone Deficiency: Physiology and Clinical Management. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Sierksma, Gerard, and Diptesh Ghosh. 2010. “Minimum Spanning Trees.” Pp. 37–60 in Networks in Action: Text and Computer Exercises in Network Optimization, International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, edited by D. Ghosh. Boston, MA: Springer US.

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 Sociological Theory.

Blog post

Luntz, Stephen. 2014. “Biodegradable Plastic Option From Shrimp Shells.” IFLScience. Retrieved October 30, 2018 (https://www.iflscience.com/technology/biodegradable-plastic-option-shrimp-shells/).

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. 2004. Job Access and Reverse Commute: Program Status and Potential Effects of Proposed Legislative Changes. GAO-04-934R. 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

Hendricks, Edward D. 2010. “Teaching Teachers: A Study of Teacher Educators’ Perceptions of the Effect of Meeting Mandated NCATE Standards.” Doctoral dissertation, Capella University, Minneapolis, MN.

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

Feeney, Kelly. 2007. “Beachfront Cafe.” New York Times, September 9, 14NJ10.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Shaye and Greenwald 2002; Smaglik 2004).

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

Two authors: (Shaye and Greenwald 2002)
Three authors: (Jenkins, Saam, and Mango 2006)
4 or more authors: (Liu et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Sociological Theory
ISSN (print)	0735-2751
Scope	Sociology and Political Science