How to format your references using the Theory and Decision citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Theory and Decision. 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

Karnik, R. N. (2014). Materials science: Breakthrough for protons. Nature, 516(7530), 173–175.

A journal article with 2 authors

Brent, R., & Lok, L. (2005). Cell biology. A fishing buddy for hypothesis generators. Science (New York, N.Y.), 308(5721), 504–506.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kislev, M. E., Hartmann, A., & Bar-Yosef, O. (2006). Early domesticated fig in the Jordan Valley. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312(5778), 1372–1374.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Dong, C., Yang, D. D., Tournier, C., Whitmarsh, A. J., Xu, J., Davis, R. J., & Flavell, R. A. (2000). JNK is required for effector T-cell function but not for T-cell activation. Nature, 405(6782), 91–94.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Beagle, J. R. (2013). Surgical Essentials of Immediate Implant Dentistry. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Horne, R. (Ed.). (2015). Embracing Global Computing in Emerging Economies: First Workshop, EGC 2015, Almaty, Kazakhstan, February 26-28, 2015. Proceedings (Vol. 514). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Lu, C., Mai, Y.-W., & Shen, Y.-G. (2007). The Origin of Superhardness in Nanocomposite Coatings: Analysis of Nanoindentation and Scratch Tests. In Y. L. Bai, Q. S. Zheng, & Y. G. Wei (Eds.), IUTAM Symposium on Mechanical Behavior and Micro-Mechanics of Nanostructured Materials: Proceedings of the IUTAM Symposium held in Beijing, China, June 27–30, 2005 (pp. 39–49). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

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 Theory and Decision.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, September 2). Khaled al-Asaad, The Martyr Of Palmyra. 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. (1998). Best Practices: Elements Critical to Successfully Reducing Unneeded RDT&E Infrastructure (No. NSIAD/RCED-98-23). 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

Edwards, K. (2017). Autism Spectrum Disorder and Social Narratives: Personalization of Delivery via Brief Experimental Analysis (Doctoral dissertation). Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL.

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

Hodgman, J. (2017, March 17). Bonus Advice From Judge John Hodgman. New York Times, p. MM24.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Karnik 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Brent and Lok 2005; Karnik 2014).

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

Two authors: (Brent and Lok 2005)
Three or more authors: (Dong et al. 2000)

About the journal

Full journal title	Theory and Decision
Abbreviation	Theory Decis.
ISSN (print)	0040-5833
ISSN (online)	1573-7187
Scope	Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) Computer Science Applications General Decision Sciences General Economics, Econometrics and Finance Applied Psychology Developmental and Educational Psychology General Social Sciences