How to format your references using the American Journal of Political Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for American Journal of Political Science (AJPS). 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

Pearson, Helen. 2002. “Stem cells: articles of faith adulterated.” Nature 420(6917): 734–735.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sherman, Gavin, and P. Kirk Visscher. 2002. “Honeybee colonies achieve fitness through dancing.” Nature 419(6910): 920–922.

A journal article with 3 authors

Pack, Andreas, J. Michael G. Shelley, and Herbert Palme. 2004. “Chondrules with peculiar REE patterns: implications for solar nebular condensation at high C/O.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 303(5660): 997–1000.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Gao, Feng et al. 2014. “Tetrathiafulvalene-supported triple-decker phthalocyaninato dysprosium(III) complex: synthesis, properties and surface assembly.” Scientific reports 4: 5928.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Chapman, Brian R., and Eric G. Bolen. 2015. Ecology of North America. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Bates, Seth. 2005. SharePoint 2003 User’s Guide. ed. Tony Smith. Berkeley, CA: Apress.

A chapter in an edited book

Parker, Jay et al. 2008. “Geophysical Finite-Element Simulation Tool (GeoFEST): Algorithms and Validation for Quasistatic Regional Faulted Crust Problems.” In Earthquakes: Simulations, Sources and Tsunamis, eds. Kristy F. Tiampo, Dion K. Weatherley, and Stuart A. Weinstein. Basel: Birkhäuser, p. 497–521.

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 American Journal of Political Science.

Blog post

Andrew, Elise. 2015. “Scientists Discover Teeny Tiny Rare Species Of Shark.” IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/second-specimen-one-worlds-rarest-sharks-discovered/ (Accessed October 30, 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. 1976. NASA Designation of Their Ames Facility to Be Lead Center for Helicopter Research and Development. 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

Ren, Hanlong. 2014. “Modification and Characterization of Ordered Mesoporous Carbons for Resorcinol Removal.” Doctoral dissertation. University of Louisiana.

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

Wagner, James. 2017. “Cespedes Serves as Grand Marshal in the Mets’ Home Run Parade.” New York Times: B9.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Pearson 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Pearson 2002; Sherman and Visscher 2002).

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

Two authors: (Sherman and Visscher 2002)
Three authors: (Pack, Shelley, and Palme 2004)
4 or more authors: (Gao et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	American Journal of Political Science
Abbreviation	Am. J. Pol. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0092-5853
ISSN (online)	1540-5907
Scope	Sociology and Political Science Political Science and International Relations