How to format your references using the Research in Post-Compulsory Education citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Research in Post-Compulsory Education. 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

Diebold, Alain C. 2005. “Applied Physics. Subsurface Imaging with Scanning Ultrasound Holography.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 310 (5745): 61–62.

A journal article with 2 authors

Christensen, Søren Tvorup, and Carolyn Marie Ott. 2007. “Cell Signaling. A Ciliary Signaling Switch.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 317 (5836): 330–331.

A journal article with 3 authors

Javaux, E. J., A. H. Knoll, and M. R. Walter. 2001. “Morphological and Ecological Complexity in Early Eukaryotic Ecosystems.” Nature 412 (6842): 66–69.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Cufí, Sílvia, Alejandro Vazquez-Martin, Cristina Oliveras-Ferraros, Bruna Corominas-Faja, Elisabet Cuyàs, Eugeni López-Bonet, Begoña Martin-Castillo, Jorge Joven, and Javier A. Menendez. 2013. “The Anti-Malarial Chloroquine Overcomes Primary Resistance and Restores Sensitivity to Trastuzumab in HER2-Positive Breast Cancer.” Scientific Reports 3 (2013): 2469.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Celant, Giorgio, and Michel Broniatowski. 2016. Interpolation and Extrapolation Optimal Designs 1. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Ulivi, Paolo. 2012. Robotic Exploration of the Solar System: Part 3: Wows and Woes, 1997-2003. Edited by David M. Harland. Springer Praxis Books. New York, NY: Praxis.

A chapter in an edited book

Calvo, H. L., H. M. Pastawski, and R. A. Jalabert. 2009. “Time-Reversal Mirrors In Chaotic Cavities.” In Complex Phenomena in Nanoscale Systems, edited by Giulio Casati and Davron Matrasulov, 37–49. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

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 Research in Post-Compulsory Education.

Blog post

Andrews, Robin. 2015. “Scientists Turn Harmful Algal Blooms Into High-Capacity Battery Components.” IFLScience, IFLScience, October 13.

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. 1976. Cable Television and a Regulatory Policy. CED-76-124. 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

Alvandipour, Mehrdad. 2017. “Thermographic Image Analysis with Gabor Filters.” Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University.

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

Barron, James. 2017. “Some Gifts Go in the Closet. These Go on the Block.” New York Times, May 12, 2017.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Diebold 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Diebold 2005; Christensen and Ott 2007).

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

Two authors: (Christensen and Ott 2007)
Three authors: (Javaux, Knoll, and Walter 2001)
4 or more authors: (Cufí et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Research in Post-Compulsory Education
ISSN (print)	1359-6748
ISSN (online)	1747-5112
Scope	Education