How to format your references using the The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 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	Download the output style file
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

Abbott, A. “WHO Plans Study of Gulf War Fallout.” Nature 413, no. 6852 (September 13, 2001): 97.

A journal article with 2 authors

Utz, Marcel, and James Landers. “Chemistry. Magnetic Resonance and Microfluidics.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 330, no. 6007 (November 19, 2010): 1056–58.

A journal article with 3 authors

Van Hoof, Chris, Kris Baert, and Ann Witvrouw. “Physics. The Best Materials for Tiny, Clever Sensors.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 306, no. 5698 (November 5, 2004): 986–87.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Jin, Qing, Lin Wang, Cheng-Yi Xia, and Zhen Wang. “Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in Interdependent Networked Game.” Scientific Reports 4 (February 14, 2014): 4095.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Staudt, Günter. Experimentalphysik. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2001.

An edited book

Fox, Robert I., and Carla M. Fox, eds. Sjögren’s Syndrome: Practical Guidelines to Diagnosis and Therapy. 1st ed. New York, NY: Springer, 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

Bleher, Pavel M. “Exact Solution of the Six-Vertex Model with Domain Wall Boundary Conditions.” In New Trends in Mathematical Physics: Selected Contributions of the XVth International Congress on Mathematical Physics, edited by Vladas Sidoravičius, 59–72. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2009.

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 Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History.

Blog post

Carpineti, Alfredo. “Help Kickstart More Science On The Most Mysterious Star In The Galaxy.” IFLScience. IFLScience, June 13, 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/space/help-kickstart-more-science-on-the-most-mysterious-star-in-the-galaxy/.

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. “Hazardous Weather Detection and Warning Systems.” Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 30, 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Witt, Sharon R. “A Study of the Relationship of Online Course Factors and Passing or Failing an Online Course.” Doctoral dissertation, Capella University, 2017.

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

Turkewitz, Julie, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, John Eligon, and Alan Blinder. “Before the Gunfire in Virginia, A Volatile Home Life in Illinois.” New York Times, June 17, 2017.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text

About the journal

Full journal title	The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
Abbreviation	J. Imp. Commonw. Hist.
ISSN (print)	0308-6534
ISSN (online)	1743-9329
Scope	History Development Political Science and International Relations