How to format your references using the Sociology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Sociology. 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

Kennedy S (2008) Epidemiology. Why can’t we test our way to absolute food safety? Science (New York, N.Y.) 322(5908): 1641–1643.

A journal article with 2 authors

Rychert CA and Shearer PM (2009) A global view of the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary. Science (New York, N.Y.) 324(5926): 495–498.

A journal article with 3 authors

Dethlefsen L, McFall-Ngai M and Relman DA (2007) An ecological and evolutionary perspective on human-microbe mutualism and disease. Nature 449(7164): 811–818.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Taatjes DJ, Näär AM, Andel F 3rd, et al. (2002) Structure, function, and activator-induced conformations of the CRSP coactivator. Science (New York, N.Y.) 295(5557): 1058–1062.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kindmann R and Kraus M (2012) Steel Structures. Berlin, Germany: Ernst & Sohn Verlag für Architektur und technische Wissenschaften GmbH & Co. KG.

An edited book

Cleveland RH (ed.) (2012) Imaging in Pediatric Pulmonology. Boston, MA: Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Basketter DA and McFadden JP (2012) Cutaneous Allergies. In: Dietert RR and Luebke RW (eds) Immunotoxicity, Immune Dysfunction, and Chronic Disease. Molecular and Integrative Toxicology. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press, pp. 103–126.

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 Sociology.

Blog post

Andrews R (2015) Scientists Can Now Make Leukemia Cells Kill Each Other. IFLScience.

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 (2009) Federal Transit Administration: Progress and Challenges in Implementing and Evaluating the Job Access and Reverse Commute Program. GAO-09-496, 21 May. 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

Tan-atichat TP (2008) Behavior of VNC in high-latency environments and techniques for improvement. Doctoral dissertation. University of California San Diego, La Jolla, 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

Grynbaum MM (2017) A New Press Secretary, for a President at War With the Press. New York Times, 8 August.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Kennedy, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Kennedy, 2008; Rychert and Shearer, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Rychert and Shearer, 2009)
Three or more authors: (Taatjes et al., 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Sociology
Abbreviation	Sociology
ISSN (print)	0038-0385
ISSN (online)	1469-8684
Scope	Sociology and Political Science