How to format your references using the The Computer Games Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Computer Games 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:

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

Austin, J. (2006). Salary survey. U.S. life scientists report rising salaries and high job satisfaction. Science (New York, N.Y.), 314(5800), 842–847.

A journal article with 2 authors

Davis, B. R., & Candotti, F. (2010). Genetics. Mosaicism--switch or spectrum? Science (New York, N.Y.), 330(6000), 46–47.

A journal article with 3 authors

Green, M. T., Dawson, J. H., & Gray, H. B. (2004). Oxoiron(IV) in chloroperoxidase compound II is basic: implications for P450 chemistry. Science (New York, N.Y.), 304(5677), 1653–1656.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Carpenter, S. R., DeFries, R., Dietz, T., Mooney, H. A., Polasky, S., Reid, W. V., & Scholes, R. J. (2006). Ecology. Millennium ecosystem assessment: research needs. Science (New York, N.Y.), 314(5797), 257–258.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Pinoli, J.-C. (2014). Mathematical Foundations of Image Processing and Analysis 1. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Gould, L., & Sauther, M. L. (Eds.). (2007). Lemurs: Ecology and Adaptation. Boston, MA: Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Albert, E., Correas, J., & Román-Díez, G. (2016). Resource Analysis of Distributed Systems. In E. Ábrahám, M. Bonsangue, & E. B. Johnsen (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Formal Methods: Essays Dedicated to Frank de Boer on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday (pp. 33–46). 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 The Computer Games Journal.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014, January 7). Houseplants could one day power TVs, computers, and more. 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. (2001). Student Discipline: Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (No. GAO-01-210). 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

Mackay, E. A. (2009). Title I funding allocation of reserve funds after increased standards for academic proficiency under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Doctoral dissertation). George Washington University, Washington, DC.

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

Corkery, M. (2017, August 8). Uneven Gains For Graduates Of Walmart U. New York Times, p. A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Austin 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Austin 2006; Davis and Candotti 2010).

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

Two authors: (Davis and Candotti 2010)
Three or more authors: (Carpenter et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	The Computer Games Journal
ISSN (online)	2052-773X
Scope

Research and Writing Guides