How to format your references using the Systemic Practice and Action Research citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Systemic Practice and Action Research. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

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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.
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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
Schwamb ME (2014) Solar System: Stranded in no-man’s-land. Nature 507:435–436
A journal article with 2 authors
Lukas D, Huchard E (2014) Sexual conflict. The evolution of infanticide by males in mammalian societies. Science 346:841–844
A journal article with 3 authors
Healy D, Jones RR, Holdsworth RE (2006) Three-dimensional brittle shear fracturing by tensile crack interaction. Nature 439:64–67
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Verlet JRR, Bragg AE, Kammrath A, et al (2005) Observation of large water-cluster anions with surface-bound excess electrons. Science 307:93–96

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Ng R (2005) Drugs. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ
An edited book
Beer J (2012) Cosmogenic Radionuclides: Theory and Applications in the Terrestrial and Space Environments. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
A chapter in an edited book
Fabian M, Habala P, Hájek P, et al (2011) Schauder Bases. In: Habala P, Hájek P, Montesinos V, Zizler V (eds) Banach Space Theory: The Basis for Linear and Nonlinear Analysis. Springer, New York, NY, pp 179–235

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 Systemic Practice and Action Research.

Blog post
Carpineti C (2017) According To Elon Musk, There’s Only One Way For Humans To Survive The Age Of Artificial Intelligence. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/according-to-elon-musk-theres-only-one-way-for-humans-to-survive-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (2000) Title I Program: Stronger Accountability Needed for Performance of Disadvantaged Students. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
Faye C (2017) Dust. Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University

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 MW (2016) Struggling Puerto Rico Defaults on Its Debt Payments. New York Times B6

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Schwamb 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Schwamb 2014; Lukas and Huchard 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Lukas and Huchard 2014)
  • Three or more authors: (Verlet et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleSystemic Practice and Action Research
AbbreviationSyst. Pract. Action Res.
ISSN (print)1094-429X
ISSN (online)1573-9295
ScopeManagement of Technology and Innovation
Strategy and Management

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