How to format your references using the Contemporary South Asia citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Contemporary South Asia. 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 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

Ivell, Richard. 2002. “Endocrinology. This Hormone Has Been Relaxin’ Too Long!” Science (New York, N.Y.) 295 (5555): 637–638.

A journal article with 2 authors

Solomon, T. H., and Igor Mezić. 2003. “Uniform Resonant Chaotic Mixing in Fluid Flows.” Nature 425 (6956): 376–380.

A journal article with 3 authors

Thulasiram, Hirekodathakallu V., Hans K. Erickson, and C. Dale Poulter. 2007. “Chimeras of Two Isoprenoid Synthases Catalyze All Four Coupling Reactions in Isoprenoid Biosynthesis.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 316 (5821): 73–76.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Mizutani, Akihiro, Kiyoshi Tamaki, Rikizo Ikuta, Takashi Yamamoto, and Nobuyuki Imoto. 2014. “Measurement-Device-Independent Quantum Key Distribution for Scarani-Acin-Ribordy-Gisin 04 Protocol.” Scientific Reports 4 (June 2014): 5236.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kupka, Hans J. 2010. Transitions in Molecular Systems. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Deakin, Janine E., Paul D. Waters, and Jennifer A. Marshall Graves, eds. 2010. Marsupial Genetics and Genomics. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Papathanasiou, Jason, Nikolaos Ploskas, and Nikolaos Samaras. 2014. “A Web-Based Decision Support System for the Multiple Capacitated Facility Location Problem.” In Decision Support Systems III - Impact of Decision Support Systems for Global Environments: Euro Working Group Workshops, EWG-DSS 2013, Thessaloniki, Greece, May 29-31, 2013, and Rome, Italy, July 1-4, 2013, Revised Selected and Extended Papers, edited by Fátima Dargam, Jorge E. Hernández, Pascale Zaraté, Shaofeng Liu, Rita Ribeiro, Boris Delibašić, and Jason Papathanasiou, 34–44. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. 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 Contemporary South Asia.

Blog post

Andrew, Elise. 2014. “First Known Mass Extinction May Have Been Caused By Huge Volcanic Eruptions In Australia.” IFLScience, IFLScience, May 31. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/first-known-mass-extinction-may-have-been-caused-huge-volcanic-eruptions-australia/.

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. 2013. GPS Disruptions: Efforts to Assess Risks to Critical Infrastructure and Coordinate Agency Actions Should Be Enhanced. GAO-14-15. 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

Wirtz, Yannick. 2017. “Strain Variation between the Monterey and Sisquoc Formations, Southern Santa Maria Basin, California, USA: Implications for Structural Assessment of Fold and Thrust Belts.” Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach.

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

Shpigel, Ben. 2016. “Red Sox Muster a Threat After Porcello Stumbles, but the Indians Hold On.” New York Times, October 7, 2016.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ivell 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Ivell 2002; Solomon and Mezić 2003).

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

Two authors: (Solomon and Mezić 2003)
Three authors: (Thulasiram, Erickson, and Poulter 2007)
4 or more authors: (Mizutani et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Contemporary South Asia
Abbreviation	Contemp. South Asia
ISSN (print)	0958-4935
ISSN (online)	1469-364X
Scope	Development Geography, Planning and Development Political Science and International Relations