How to format your references using the Information Retrieval citation style

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

Swartz, K. J. (2008). Sensing voltage across lipid membranes. Nature, 456(7224), 891–897.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lendlein, A., & Langer, R. (2002). Biodegradable, elastic shape-memory polymers for potential biomedical applications. Science (New York, N.Y.), 296(5573), 1673–1676.

A journal article with 3 authors

Paredez, A. R., Somerville, C. R., & Ehrhardt, D. W. (2006). Visualization of cellulose synthase demonstrates functional association with microtubules. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312(5779), 1491–1495.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Freiman, R. N., Albright, S. R., Zheng, S., Sha, W. C., Hammer, R. E., & Tjian, R. (2001). Requirement of tissue-selective TBP-associated factor TAFII105 in ovarian development. Science (New York, N.Y.), 293(5537), 2084–2087.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lewis, S. (2016). Positive Psychology and Change. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Hilder, S., & Bettinson, V. (Eds.). (2016). Domestic Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Protection, Prevention and Intervention. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

A chapter in an edited book

Druffel, E. R. M., Beaupré, S. R., & Ziolkowski, L. A. (2016). Radiocarbon in the Oceans. In E. A. G. Schuur, E. Druffel, & S. E. Trumbore (Eds.), Radiocarbon and Climate Change: Mechanisms, Applications and Laboratory Techniques (pp. 139–166). 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 Information Retrieval.

Blog post

Hale, T. (2015, October 28). Sensor Breakthrough Could Enable Smartphones To Detect Air Pollution. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/sensor-breakthrough-could-enable-smartphones-detect-air-pollution/. 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. (2011). Transportation Security Information Sharing: Results of GAO’s Survey of Stakeholder Satisfaction with TSA Products and Mechanisms (GAO-12-67SP, November 2011), an E-supplement to GAO-12-44 (No. GAO-12-67SP). 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

Lucky-Medford, L. (2010). A gendered approach to synaesthesia using the poetry of John Keats and Emily Dickinson (Doctoral dissertation). Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL.

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

Kelly, M. (1992, November 10). THE TRANSITION: The President-Elect; Despite Some Signs of Recovery, Clinton Points to Economic Perils. New York Times, p. A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Swartz 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Lendlein and Langer 2002; Swartz 2008).

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

Two authors: (Lendlein and Langer 2002)
Three or more authors: (Freiman et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Information Retrieval
Abbreviation	Inf. Retr. Boston.
ISSN (print)	1386-4564
ISSN (online)	1573-7659
Scope	Information Systems Library and Information Sciences