How to format your references using the The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (BJPS). 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 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

Deary, I. [2008]: ‘Why Do Intelligent People Live Longer?’, Nature, 456, pp. 175–6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Takeuchi, J. K. and Bruneau, B. G. [2009]: ‘Directed Transdifferentiation of Mouse Mesoderm to Heart Tissue by Defined Factors’, Nature, 459, pp. 708–11.

A journal article with 3 authors

Li, S., Matthews, J. and Sinha, A. [2008]: ‘Atmospheric Hydroxyl Radical Production from Electronically Excited NO2 and H2O’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 319, pp. 1657–60.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Yu, E. W., McDermott, G., Zgurskaya, H. I., Nikaido, H. and Koshland, D. E., Jr [2003]: ‘Structural Basis of Multiple Drug-Binding Capacity of the AcrB Multidrug Efflux Pump’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 300, pp. 976–80.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Armaroli, N., Balzani, V. and Serpone, N. [2013]: ‘Powering Planet Earth’, Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Allhoff, F. and Lin, P. (eds) [2009]: ‘Nanotechnology & Society: Current and Emerging Ethical Issues’, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Prudente, F. V. and Guimarães, M. N. [2014]: ‘Confined Quantum Systems Using the Finite Element and Discrete Variable Representation Methods’, in K. D. Sen (ed.), Electronic Structure of Quantum Confined Atoms and Molecules, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 101–43.

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 British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

Blog post

Luntz, S. [2016, May 15]: ‘Fungal Success Credited To A Virus’, IFLScience, IFLScience, <https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/fungal-success-credited-virus/>.

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 [2011]: ‘Joint Strike Fighter: Restructuring Should Improve Outcomes, but Progress Is Still Lagging Overall’, 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

Washington-Cobb, S. L. [2012]: ‘Exploring the Experiences of Former Alternative Education Participants: Case Studies’, 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

Hodara, S. [2016, July 3]: ‘On the Glass House’s Pond, Clattering Polka Dots’, New York Times, p. CT9 p. CT9.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Deary [2008]).
This sentence cites two references (Deary [2008]; Takeuchi and Bruneau [2009]).

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

Two authors: (Takeuchi and Bruneau [2009])
Three or more authors: (Yu et al. [2003])

About the journal

Full journal title	The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science
Abbreviation	Br. J. Philos. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0007-0882
ISSN (online)	1464-3537
Scope	History History and Philosophy of Science Philosophy