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

Watling, Les. 2013. “Deep-Sea Trawling Must Be Banned.” Nature 501(7465):7.

A journal article with 2 authors

Miller, Gary T., and Scott Pitnick. 2002. “Sperm-Female Coevolution in Drosophila.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 298(5596):1230–33.

A journal article with 3 authors

Holland, Greg, Martin Cassidy, and Chris J. Ballentine. 2009. “Meteorite Kr in Earth’s Mantle Suggests a Late Accretionary Source for the Atmosphere.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 326(5959):1522–25.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Wu, Luo, Shuxin Li, Weiwei He, Dayong Teng, Ke Wang, and Changhui Ye. 2014. “Automatic Release of Silicon Nanowire Arrays with a High Integrity for Flexible Electronic Devices.” Scientific Reports 4:3940.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Schorn, Christian, and Brian Taylor. 2004. NMR Spectroscopy: Data Acquisition. Weinheim, FRG: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Nagai, Yoshiyuki, ed. 2013. Sendai Virus Vector: Advantages and Applications. Tokyo: Springer Japan.

A chapter in an edited book

Pettigrew, Simone, and Michelle I. Jongenelis. 2016. “Promoting Public Health: Understanding the Limitations of Marketing Principles and the Need for Alternative Approaches.” Pp. 61–72 in Making a Difference Through Marketing: A Quest for Diverse Perspectives, edited by C. Plewa and J. Conduit. 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 Sociological Theory.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, Jonathan. 2017. “This Bionic Octopus Arm Can Wrap Around Objects And Pick Them Up.” IFLScience. Retrieved October 30, 2018 (https://www.iflscience.com/technology/this-bionic-octopus-arm-can-wrap-around-objects-and-pick-them-up/).

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. 1971. Activities of the Research and Development Center - Thailand, Advanced Research Projects Agency. B-167324. 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

Douet, Christophe. 2010. “The Influence of an Overseas Trip to France on High School Students Studying French, Four Years after Graduation.” 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

Walsh, Mary Williams. 2015. “A.I.G.’s Chief Says Insurer Is Reducing Its Risks.” New York Times, May 2, B3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Watling 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Miller and Pitnick 2002; Watling 2013).

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

Two authors: (Miller and Pitnick 2002)
Three authors: (Holland, Cassidy, and Ballentine 2009)
4 or more authors: (Wu et al. 2014)

About the journal

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