How to format your references using the Natural Language Semantics citation style

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

Biba, Erin. 2014. Protection: the sunscreen pill. Nature 515: S124-5.

A journal article with 2 authors

Jenuwein, T., and C. D. Allis. 2001. Translating the histone code. Science (New York, N.Y.) 293: 1074–1080.

A journal article with 3 authors

Karlsson, Mattias P., Dougal G. R. Tervo, and Alla Y. Karpova. 2012. Network resets in medial prefrontal cortex mark the onset of behavioral uncertainty. Science (New York, N.Y.) 338: 135–139.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Reithmaier, J. P., G. Sek, A. Löffler, C. Hofmann, S. Kuhn, S. Reitzenstein, L. V. Keldysh, V. D. Kulakovskii, T. L. Reinecke, and A. Forchel. 2004. Strong coupling in a single quantum dot-semiconductor microcavity system. Nature 432: 197–200.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lader, Ellis W. 2013. Field Guide to the Arrhythmias. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

An edited book

Jansen, Paul G. W., and Gert Roodt, ed. 2015. Conceptualising and Measuring Work Identity: South-African Perspectives and Findings. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Nagurney, Anna, Anna Nagurney, Jose M. Cruz, and June Dong. 2006. Global Supply Chain Networks and Risk Management: A Multi-Agent Framework. In Multiagent based Supply Chain Management, ed. Brahim Chaib-draa and Jörg P. Müller, 103–134. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

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 Natural Language Semantics.

Blog post

Fang, Janet. 2015. 17-Million-Year-Old Whale Fossil Gives Hints To The Dawn Of Humanity. IFLScience. IFLScience. March 18.

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. 1989. Head Start: Information on Sponsoring Organizations and Center Facilities. HRD-89-123FS. 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

Motala, Suraiya. 2009. Siblings caring for elderly parents with dementia. Doctoral dissertation, Long Beach, CA: 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

Crow, Kelly. 2001. Many Families Waver on Plans For Holidays. New York Times, October 21.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Biba 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Jenuwein and Allis 2001; Biba 2014).

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

Two authors: (Jenuwein and Allis 2001)
Three or more authors: (Reithmaier et al. 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Natural Language Semantics
Abbreviation	Nat. Lang. Semant.
ISSN (print)	0925-854X
ISSN (online)	1572-865X
Scope	Philosophy Linguistics and Language