How to format your references using the Vocations and Learning citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Vocations and Learning. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Boyd, J. (2002). Tech.Sight. Robotic laboratory automation. Science (New York, N.Y.), 295(5554), 517–518.
A journal article with 2 authors
Fujii, M. S., & Portegies Zwart, S. (2011). The origin of OB runaway stars. Science (New York, N.Y.), 334(6061), 1380–1383.
A journal article with 3 authors
Hermans, T. M., Frauenrath, H., & Stellacci, F. (2013). Materials science. Droplets out of equilibrium. Science (New York, N.Y.), 341(6143), 243–244.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Aung, L.-H.-H., Yin, R.-X., Wu, J.-Z., Wu, D.-F., Wang, W., & Li, H. (2014). Association between the MLX interacting protein-like, BUD13 homolog and zinc finger protein 259 gene polymorphisms and serum lipid levels. Scientific reports, 4, 5565.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Gaynor, G. H. (2014). Decisions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Cristea, I. A. (2016). REBT in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders in Children and Adults. (S. Stefan, O. David, C. Mogoase, & A. Dobrean, Eds.) (1st ed. 2016.). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Fukino, N., & Kawazu, Y. (2016). DNA Markers in Cucurbitaceae Breeding. In H. Ezura, T. Ariizumi, J. Garcia-Mas, & J. Rose (Eds.), Functional Genomics and Biotechnology in Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae Crops (pp. 59–74). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

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 Vocations and Learning.

Blog post
Davis, J. (2015, July 13). Hibernating Bears Could Teach us About Long-Distance Space Travel. 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. (2009). Aviation Security: DHS and TSA Have Researched, Developed, and Begun Deploying Passenger Checkpoint Screening Technologies, but Continue to Face Challenges (No. GAO-10-128). 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
Casem, J. (2009). Moku Ka Pawa: Drawn to the Light (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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
Walsh, M. W. (2015, September 3). Puerto Rico to Restructure Up to $5.7 Billion in Debt. New York Times, p. B4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Boyd 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Boyd 2002; Fujii and Portegies Zwart 2011).

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

  • Two authors: (Fujii and Portegies Zwart 2011)
  • Three or more authors: (Aung et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleVocations and Learning
AbbreviationVocat. Learn.
ISSN (print)1874-785X
ISSN (online)1874-7868
ScopeEducation

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