How to format your references using the Small Business Economics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Small Business Economics. 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

Nelson, B. (2008). Benefits blues. Nature, 454(7200), 132–133.

A journal article with 2 authors

Frenking, G., & Holzmann, N. (2012). Chemistry. A boron-boron triple bond. Science (New York, N.Y.), 336(6087), 1394–1395.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ahissar, E., Sosnik, R., & Haidarliu, S. (2000). Transformation from temporal to rate coding in a somatosensory thalamocortical pathway. Nature, 406(6793), 302–306.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Sang, L., Hu, J., Zou, R., Koide, Y., & Liao, M. (2013). Arbitrary multicolor photodetection by hetero-integrated semiconductor nanostructures. Scientific reports, 3, 2368.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Liu, J., Dong, X., Chen, X., Tong, X., Zhang, X., & Xu, S. (2016). Fault Location and Service Restoration for Electrical Distribution Systems. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd.

An edited book

Scales, D. C., & Rubenfeld, G. D. (Eds.). (2014). The Organization of Critical Care: An Evidence-Based Approach to Improving Quality (Vol. 18). New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Grange, L. L. (2011). The Philosophy of Ubuntu and Education in South Africa. In W. Veugelers (Ed.), Education and Humanism: Linking Autonomy and Humanity (pp. 67–78). Rotterdam: SensePublishers.

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 Small Business Economics.

Blog post

Davis, J. (2015, August 5). Archeologists Unearth The Gate Of An Ancient Biblical City. IFLScience. IFLScience. 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. (2013). Individuals with Disabilities Education Act: Standards Needed to Improve Identification of Racial and Ethnic Overrepresentation in Special Education (No. GAO-13-137). 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

Landon, S. G. (2015). The development of a transitional shelter program for homeless women: A grant proposal (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Grynbaum, M. M. (2017, June 30). The Battle of ‘Morning Joe’: A Presidential Feud. 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 (Nelson 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Frenking and Holzmann 2012; Nelson 2008).

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

Two authors: (Frenking and Holzmann 2012)
Three or more authors: (Sang et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Small Business Economics
Abbreviation	Small Bus. Econ.
ISSN (print)	0921-898X
ISSN (online)	1573-0913
Scope	General Business, Management and Accounting Economics and Econometrics