How to format your references using the Journal of Finance citation style

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

Basu, Paroma, 2005, Vaccines on trial, Nature 436, 484.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lamb, Simon, and Paul Davis, 2003, Cenozoic climate change as a possible cause for the rise of the Andes, Nature 425, 792–797.

A journal article with 3 authors

Stott, Peter A., D. A. Stone, and M. R. Allen, 2004, Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003, Nature 432, 610–614.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Kessler, Jessica D., Kristopher T. Kahle, Tingting Sun, Kristen L. Meerbrey, Michael R. Schlabach, Earlene M. Schmitt, Samuel O. Skinner, Qikai Xu, Mamie Z. Li, Zachary C. Hartman, Mitchell Rao, Peng Yu, Rocio Dominguez-Vidana, Anthony C. Liang, Nicole L. Solimini, Ronald J. Bernardi, Bing Yu, Tiffany Hsu, Ido Golding, Ji Luo, C. Kent Osborne, Chad J. Creighton, Susan G. Hilsenbeck, Rachel Schiff, Chad A. Shaw, Stephen J. Elledge, and Thomas F. Westbrook, 2012, A SUMOylation-dependent transcriptional subprogram is required for Myc-driven tumorigenesis, Science (New York, N.Y.) 335, 348–353.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Yin, Guosheng, 2011, Clinical Trial Design: Bayesian and Frequentist Adaptive Methods. Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ).

An edited book

Kemmis, Stephen, 2014, Changing Practices, Changing Education. Ed. Jane Wilkinson, Christine Edwards-Groves, Ian Hardy, Peter Grootenboer, and Laurette Bristol (Springer, Singapore).

A chapter in an edited book

Wentz, B., M. Cirba, N. Kharal, J. Moran, and M. Slate, 2012, Evaluating the Accessibility and Usability of Blogging Platforms for Blind Users, in Patrick Langdon, in John Clarkson, in Peter Robinson, in Jonathan Lazar, and in Ann Heylighen ed.: Designing Inclusive Systems: Designing Inclusion for Real-world Applications (Springer, London).

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 Journal of Finance.

Blog post

Hamilton, Kristy, 2017, Why Are We More Likely To Get Cancer As We Age?, IFLScience (IFLScience).

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, 1998, Air Traffic Control: Weak Computer Security Practices Jeopardize Flight Safety, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gan, Kangfei, 2011, A Parity-Violating Spin Rotation Measurement of Transversely Polarized Cold Neutrons Through a Liquid Helium Target, (George Washington University, Washington, DC).

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

Hollander, Sophia, 2000, Bryan Twins End Run of Opening-Round Losses, New York Times.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Finance
Abbreviation	J. Finance
ISSN (print)	0022-1082
ISSN (online)	1540-6261
Scope	Accounting Economics and Econometrics Finance