How to format your references using the Information citation style

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

Eisenstein, M. Drug Development: Holding out for Reinforcements. Nature 2012, 484, S16-8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ash, C.; Jasny, B.R. Trypanosomatid Genomes. Introduction. Science 2005, 309, 399.

A journal article with 3 authors

Koo, B.; Nottenburg, C.; Pardey, P.G. Intellectual Property. Plants and Intellectual Property: An International Appraisal. Science 2004, 306, 1295–1297.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Hu, K.; Harper, D.G.; Shea, S.A.; Stopa, E.G.; Scheer, F.A.J.L. Noninvasive Fractal Biomarker of Clock Neurotransmitter Disturbance in Humans with Dementia. Sci. Rep. 2013, 3, 2229.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ruppel, W. Wiley GAAP for Governments 2015; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2015; ISBN 9781118979945.

An edited book

Hagenberg Research; Buchberger, B., Affenzeller, M., Ferscha, A., Haller, M., Jebelean, T., Klement, E.P., Paule, P., Pomberger, G., Schreiner, W., Stubenrauch, R., Wagner, R., Weiß, G., Windsteiger, W., Eds.; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009; ISBN 9783642021268.

A chapter in an edited book

Trauernicht, C. Principles of Radiation Dose in Computed Tomography and Computed Tomography Colonography. In CT Colonography for Radiographers: A Guide to Performance and Image Interpretation; Bortz, J.H., Ramlaul, A., Munro, L., Eds.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; pp. 41–49 ISBN 9783319293776.

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 Information.

Blog post

Fang, J. Ceres’ Mystery Spots Are Even Stranger Than We Thought (accessed on 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 Better Information Needed for Oversight and Evaluation of Selected Elementary and Secondary Education Programs; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1978;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ponder, S. Parent Information Nights: An Elementary School Principal’s Search to Increase Parent Input and Affect the Learning-at-Home Environment. Doctoral dissertation, Lindenwood University: St. Charles, MO, 2010.

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

Gordon, M.R.; Schmitt, E. Defying Turkey, U.S. Will Arm Kurds in Syria. New York Times 2017, A1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Information
Abbreviation	Information (Basel)
ISSN (online)	2078-2489
Scope	Information Systems