How to format your references using the Software Quality Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Software Quality Journal. 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.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Scudellari, M. (2015). Drug development: Mix and match. Nature, 521(7551), S12-4.
A journal article with 2 authors
van der Goes van Naters, W., & Carlson, J. R. (2006). Insects as chemosensors of humans and crops. Nature, 444(7117), 302–307.
A journal article with 3 authors
Weiss, E., Kislev, M. E., & Hartmann, A. (2006). Anthropology. Autonomous cultivation before domestication. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312(5780), 1608–1610.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Hüttelmaier, S., Zenklusen, D., Lederer, M., Dictenberg, J., Lorenz, M., Meng, X., et al. (2005). Spatial regulation of beta-actin translation by Src-dependent phosphorylation of ZBP1. Nature, 438(7067), 512–515.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Ford, I. (2013). Statistical Physics. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Bergamini, G., Presutti, L., & Molteni, G. (Eds.). (2015). Injection Laryngoplasty (1st ed. 2015.). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Lyubchyk, L. M., & Grinberg, G. L. (2014). Preference Function Reconstruction for Multiple Criteria Decision Making Based on Machine Learning Approach. In L. A. Zadeh, A. M. Abbasov, R. R. Yager, S. N. Shahbazova, & M. Z. Reformat (Eds.), Recent Developments and New Directions in Soft Computing (pp. 53–63). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

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 Software Quality Journal.

Blog post
Carpineti, A. (2017, January 18). New Antiproton Measurement Deepens Mystery Of Why The Universe Is Made Of Matter. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/new-antiproton-measurement-deepens-mystery-of-why-the-universe-is-made-of-matter/. Accessed 30 October 2018

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. (2005). NASA: More Knowledge Needed to Determine Best Alternatives to Provide Space Station Logistics Support (No. GAO-05-488). 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
Zolfaghari, S. S. (2015). The relationship between folic acid, vitamin B12, and vitamin B6 intakes and depression in women who use hormonal oral contraceptives (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
Greenhouse, L. (2017, February 1). Searching for the Mainstream. New York Times, p. A27.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Scudellari 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Scudellari 2015; van der Goes van Naters and Carlson 2006).

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

  • Two authors: (van der Goes van Naters and Carlson 2006)
  • Three or more authors: (Hüttelmaier et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleSoftware Quality Journal
AbbreviationSoftw. Qual. J.
ISSN (print)0963-9314
ISSN (online)1573-1367
ScopeSoftware
Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

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