How to format your references using the Synthese citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Synthese. 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
Hartmann, W. K. (2000). The paradigm and the pendulum. Nature, 404(6780), 817.
A journal article with 2 authors
Lippincott-Schwartz, J., & Patterson, G. H. (2003). Development and use of fluorescent protein markers in living cells. Science (New York, N.Y.), 300(5616), 87–91.
A journal article with 3 authors
Milo, A., Bess, E. N., & Sigman, M. S. (2014). Interrogating selectivity in catalysis using molecular vibrations. Nature, 507(7491), 210–214.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Terszowski, G., Müller, S. M., Bleul, C. C., Blum, C., Schirmbeck, R., Reimann, J., et al. (2006). Evidence for a functional second thymus in mice. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312(5771), 284–287.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Vakkur, N. V., & Herrera, Z. J. (2013). Corporate Governance Regulation. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Jackson, M. B., Mookherjee, S., & Hamlin, N. P. (Eds.). (2015). The Perioperative Medicine Consult Handbook (Second Edition.). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Bird, D. W. (2016). Catalan Political Modernism: The Case of Gabriel Alomar i Villalonga (1873–1941) and Modernism on the Periphery. In A. J. Goldwyn & R. M. Silverman (Eds.), Mediterranean Modernism: Intercultural Exchange and Aesthetic Development (pp. 97–122). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan 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 Synthese.

Blog post
Andrew, D. (2015, September 23). Bizarre Snubfin Dolphin Spotted. IFLScience. IFLScience. 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). Air Traffic Control: Characteristics and Performance of Selected International Air Navigation Service Providers and Lessons Learned from Their Commercialization (No. GAO-05-769). 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
PerLee-Lange, D. L. (2010). An introduction to the juvenile dependency court process and the child welfare system: A curriculum for parents (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
(nyt), S. K. (2005, June 4). Business Briefing | Russian Gas Monopoly Buys Newspaper. New York Times, p. C2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hartmann 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Hartmann 2000; Lippincott-Schwartz and Patterson 2003).

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

  • Two authors: (Lippincott-Schwartz and Patterson 2003)
  • Three or more authors: (Terszowski et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal titleSynthese
AbbreviationSynthese
ISSN (print)0039-7857
ISSN (online)1573-0964
ScopePhilosophy
General Social Sciences

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