How to format your references using the The American Statistician citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The American Statistician (TAS). 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Hummer, G. (2014), “Biochemistry. Potassium ions line up,” Science (New York, N.Y.), 346, 303.

A journal article with 2 authors

Purves, D., and Pacala, S. (2008), “Predictive models of forest dynamics,” Science (New York, N.Y.), 320, 1452–1453.

A journal article with 3 authors

Navarrete, A., van Schaik, C. P., and Isler, K. (2011), “Energetics and the evolution of human brain size,” Nature, 480, 91–93.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Ellis, D. A., Mabury, S. A., Martin, J. W., and Muir, D. C. (2001), “Thermolysis of fluoropolymers as a potential source of halogenated organic acids in the environment,” Nature, 412, 321–324.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Giesbrecht, F. G., and Gumpertz, M. L. (2005), Planning, Construction, and Statistical Analysis of Comparative Experiments: Giesbrecht/Comparative Experiments, Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Komatineni, S. (2013), Expert Android, (D. MacLean, ed.), Berkeley, CA: Apress.

A chapter in an edited book

Barnett, M. R. (2016), “Three Decades of Electron Backscatter Diffraction of Magnesium: What Has It Taught Us?,” in Magnesium Technology 2015, eds. M. V. Manuel, A. Singh, M. Alderman, and N. R. Neelameggham, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 13–13.

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 The American Statistician.

Blog post

Andrew, D. (2017), “Until We Get Better Tools, Excited Reports Of ‘Habitable Planets’ Need To Come Back Down To Earth,” IFLScience, IFLScience, Available athttps://www.iflscience.com/space/until-we-get-better-tools-excited-reports-of-habitable-planets-need-to-come-back-down-to-earth/.

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 (1988), Information Systems: Agencies Overlook Security Controls During Development, 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

Bryant, J. D. (2014), “The Investigation of Self-Determination in Students Participating in Higher Education with an Invisible Disability,” Doctoral dissertation, St. Charles, MO: Lindenwood 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

Leland, J. (2017), “The Blink of an Eye,” New York Times, MB7.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hummer 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Hummer 2014; Purves and Pacala 2008).

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

Two authors: (Purves and Pacala 2008)
Three or more authors: (Ellis et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	The American Statistician
Abbreviation	Am. Stat.
ISSN (print)	0003-1305
ISSN (online)	1537-2731
Scope	Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty General Mathematics Statistics and Probability