How to format your references using the Synthese citation style

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

Knight, J. (2001). Physical sciences lose ground as US shifts towards biology. Nature, 412(6844), 259.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ahima, R. S., & Lazar, M. A. (2013). Physiology. The health risk of obesity--better metrics imperative. Science (New York, N.Y.), 341(6148), 856–858.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jeffery, C. S., Tout, C. A., & Lattanzio, J. C. (2006). Astronomy. Nucleosynthesis in binary stars. Science (New York, N.Y.), 311(5759), 345–346.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Shinoda, T., Ogawa, H., Cornelius, F., & Toyoshima, C. (2009). Crystal structure of the sodium-potassium pump at 2.4 A resolution. Nature, 459(7245), 446–450.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Flaus, J.-M. (2013). Risk Analysis. Hoboken, NJ USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Pisan, Y., Sgouros, N. M., & Marsh, T. (Eds.). (2014). Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2014: 13th International Conference, ICEC 2014, Sydney, Australia, October 1-3, 2014. Proceedings (Vol. 8770). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Falou, O., Sadeghi-Naini, A., Al-Mahrouki, A., Kolios, M. C., & Czarnota, G. J. (2013). Quantitative Ultrasound and Cell Death. In J. Mamou & M. L. Oelze (Eds.), Quantitative Ultrasound in Soft Tissues (pp. 95–115). 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 Synthese.

Blog post

Taub, B. (2016, August 9). Your Brain Is Designed For Reading Even Before You Learn Your ABCs. 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. (1972). The Problems of Management Information Systems: Why They Fail (No. 091001). 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

Pena, A. M. (2012). Perceptions of Spanish/English bilingual school psychologists regarding competency in assessment and future training needs (Doctoral dissertation). University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD.

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

Williams, J. (2017, May 3). Journalists In Australia Stage Strike Over Job Cuts. New York Times, p. A6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Knight 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Ahima and Lazar 2013; Knight 2001).

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

Two authors: (Ahima and Lazar 2013)
Three or more authors: (Shinoda et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	Synthese
Abbreviation	Synthese
ISSN (print)	0039-7857
ISSN (online)	1573-0964
Scope	Philosophy General Social Sciences