How to format your references using the Acta Geotechnica citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX syles 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
1.
Lawler A (2000) ASTROBIOLOGY: Ames’s Proposal for Lab Triggers Battle at NASA. Science 289:23a
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
West SA, Sheldon BC (2002) Constraints in the evolution of sex ratio adjustment. Science 295:1685–1688
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Reiner JW, Walker FJ, Ahn CH (2009) Materials science. Atomically engineered oxide interfaces. Science 323:1018–1019
A journal article with 5 or more authors
1.
Rivlin M, Horev J, Tsarfaty I, Navon G (2013) Molecular imaging of tumors and metastases using chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) MRI. Sci Rep 3:3045

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Kill R (2012) The BRC Global Standard for Food Safety. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK
An edited book
1.
Ferrández Vicente JM, Álvarez-Sánchez JR, de la Paz López F, et al (2015) Bioinspired Computation in Artificial Systems: International Work-Conference on the Interplay Between Natural and Artificial Computation, IWINAC 2015, Elche, Spain, June 1-5, 2015, Proceedings, Part II. Springer International Publishing, Cham
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Gontier N (2015) Historical and Epistemological Perspectives on What Horizontal Gene Transfer Mechanisms Contribute to Our Understanding of Evolution. In: Gontier N (ed) Reticulate Evolution: Symbiogenesis, Lateral Gene Transfer, Hybridization and Infectious Heredity. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 121–178

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 Acta Geotechnica.

Blog post
1.
Andrew E (2015) The Future Of Data Science Looks Spectacular. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/future-data-science-looks-spectacular/. Accessed 30 Oct 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
1.
Government Accountability Office (1986) Relaxation of the Common Failure Rate Assumption in Modelling Software Reliability. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Armstrong-Romero KA (2017) Cultural influences and the impact of workplace bullying. Doctoral dissertation, Capella 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
1.
Foley J, Hay G (2010) New Potential for A.I.G. Deals. New York Times B2

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1, 2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal titleActa Geotechnica
AbbreviationActa Geotech.
ISSN (print)1861-1125
ISSN (online)1861-1133
ScopeEarth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)
Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology

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