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Citing and Writing Guide: CSE Style

Information on writing and grammar, copyright, and citation styles.

Helpful CSE Guides

A Few Notes about CSE Style

The CSE style has several unique requirements, so be sure to check your citations carefully. A few things to note about CSE style:

  • There are two systems with CSE style: Name-Year and Citation-Sequence. Be sure to be informed if your professor has a preference, and use the same system consistently throughout your work.
  • Unlike most citation styles, there are no commas between an author's last name and first name 
  • You must include the number of pages of a book at the end of a book citation
  • You must abbreviate journal titles (see above).

Name-Year Reference Page Example

Article

Author (last name first initial). Year. Title (only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.) Abbreviated Journal Title (click here for assistance). Volume(issue):page numbers.

Example: Buchwald J. 2016. Politics, morality, innovation, and misrepresentation in physical science and technology. Phys in Perspect. 18(2):283-300.

When writing your reference list, your resources should be listed in alphabetical order by author. If there are other resources you used, they get their own citation page. Be careful with grammar in CSE style. Spacing and punctuation are used differently. 

Book

Author (last name first initial). Year. Title. Publisher location: publisher and extent (the book's number of pages). 

Example: Davies PCW. 1982. The accidental universe. Cambridge (England): Cambridge University Press 139 p. 

When writing your reference list, your resources should be listed in alphabetical order by author. If there are other resources you used, they get their own citation page. Be careful with grammar in CSE style. Spacing and punctuation are used differently. 

Book Chapter

Author (last name first initial.) Year. Chapter Title. In: Editor names (last name, first initial), editors. Title of book. Publisher location: publisher. Page numbers for chapter.

Example: Kargon R. 1987. Introduction. In: Kargon R, Achinstein P, editors. Kelvin's Baltimore lectures and modern theoretical physics: historical and philosophical perspectives. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press. p. 1-8.

When writing your reference list, your resources should be listed in alphabetical order by author. If there are other resources you used, they get their own citation page. Be careful with grammar in CSE style. Spacing and punctuation are used differently. 

In-Text Citations

One Author

(Buchwald 2016).

Two Authors

(Alexandros and Georgios 2017).

Three or more Authors

(Casablanca et al. 2018).

If you mention the author within the sentence you only need to cite the year. 

Book

Author (last name, first initial) Title. Place of publication: publisher; year. Extent (the book's number of pages).

Davies, PCW. The accidental universe. Cambridge (England): Cambridge University Press; 1982. 139 p.

Book Chapter

Author of chapter (last name, first initial). In editors names (last name, first initial), editors. Title. Place of publication: publisher; year. Page numbers.

Kargon, R. Introduction. In: Kargon R, Achinstein P, editors. Kelvin's Baltimore lectures and modern theoretical physics: historical and philosophical perspectives. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press; 1987. p. 1-8.

Article

Author (last name, first initial). Title. Abbreviated Journal Title (click here for assistance). Year;volume(issue):page numbers.  

Buchwald, J. Politics, morality, innovation, and misrepresentation in physical science and technology. Phys in Perspect. 2016;18(2):283-300. 

In-text references are all done with EndNotes. The difference between the two styles is how they are presented in your citation list. Be careful with grammar in CSE style. Spacing and punctuation are used differently. 

Citation-Sequence will be ordered by when they appear in your research.

Citation-Name will be ordered alphabetically.