How to format your references using the Political Studies citation style

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

Sydnes, L. K. (2013) ‘Policy: Update the Chemical Weapons Convention’, Nature, 496(7443), 25–6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tucker, T. J. and Makgoba, M. W. (2008) ‘Public health. Public-private partnerships and scientific imperialism’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 320(5879), 1016–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

Thürmer, K., Williams, E. and Reutt-Robey, J. (2002) ‘Autocatalytic oxidation of lead crystallite surfaces’, Science (New York, N.Y.), 297(5589), 2033–5.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Yusa, K., Rashid, S. T., Strick-Marchand, H., Varela, I., Liu, P.-Q., Paschon, D. E., Miranda, E., et al. (2011) ‘Targeted gene correction of α1-antitrypsin deficiency in induced pluripotent stem cells’, Nature, 478(7369), 391–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Scott, A. W. and Frobenius, R. (2008) RF Measurements for Cellular Phones and Wireless Data Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Fitzpatrick, T. R. (ed.) (2016) Treating Vulnerable Populations of Cancer Survivors: A Biopsychosocial Approach. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Diop, A., Qi, Y. and Wang, Q. (2014) ‘An Efficient and Secure Session Key Management Scheme for Cluster Based Wireless Sensors Networks’, in Q. Zu, M. Vargas-Vera and B. Hu (eds.), Pervasive Computing and the Networked World: Joint International Conference, ICPCA/SWS 2013, Vina del Mar, Chile, December 5-7, 2013. Revised Selected Papers. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 33–44.

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 Political Studies.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J. (2017, May 24) New Type Of Planetary Object May Have Formed Earth And The Moon [online]. IFLScienceIFLScience. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/new-type-of-planetary-object-may-have-formed-earth-and-the-moon/ [Accessed30 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 (2014) Highway Projects: Many Federal and State Environmental Review Requirements Are Similar, and Little Duplication of Effort Occurs ( No. GAO-15-71). 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

Hoch, V. A. (2014) The Effects of Systematic Reinforcement on Academic Performance in Precision Teaching: An Investigation of Acquisition, Retention, and Endurance. Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida, Tampa, 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

Vecsey, G. (2010, November 3) ‘By Honoring Their Past, the Giants Were Duly Rewarded’, New York Times, B15.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Sydnes, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Sydnes, 2013; Tucker and Makgoba, 2008).

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

Two authors: (Tucker and Makgoba, 2008)
Three authors: (Thürmer, Williams, and Reutt-Robey, 2002)
6 or more authors: (Yusa et al., 2011)

About the journal

Full journal title	Political Studies
Abbreviation	Polit. Stud.
ISSN (print)	0032-3217
ISSN (online)	1467-9248
Scope	Sociology and Political Science