Biblestyle

Biblestyle is a bibliographic style designed to standardize citation formatting across scholarly disciplines. It provides rules for both in-text citations and reference lists, aiming for consistency, readability, and cross-disciplinary compatibility. The style is intended to be neutral with respect to subject area and adaptable to print and digital sources alike.

Its in-text citations use an author-year format. A single author is cited as (Lastname Year, page). For two authors, (Lastname and Coauthor Year, page) is used. For three or more authors, (Lastname et al. Year, page) is preferred. Page ranges are given precisely for quotations and sections of a work, while general references may use abbreviated page indicators. The reference list is alphabetized by surname, and each entry includes author names, year, title, venue, and location identifiers such as volume and issue, followed by a DOI or URL when available. Titles follow a consistent capitalization rule, with article titles in sentence case and journal names in title case in many implementations. Abbreviations are standardized, and online sources typically include access dates when relevant.

Origin and adoption: Biblestyle was proposed by a collaborative working group in the late 2010s to facilitate cross-disciplinary citation management and improve interoperability with reference-management software. It has been adopted by a minority of journals and repositories and is supported by several editor tools and style guides. Its use remains optional in many contexts and is often constrained by specific journal requirements.

Example: In-text: (Smith 2021, 45). Reference: Smith, Alice. 2021. Understanding Style. Journal of Examples 9(4): 40-50. DOI: 10.1234/je.2021.0040.