How to format your references using the Acta Palaeontologica Polonica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 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
Thomas, R.H. 2003. Evolution. Wingless insects and plucked chickens. Science (New York, N.Y.) 299 (5614): 1854–1855.
A journal article with 2 authors
Raddick, M.J. and Szalay, A.S. 2010. SPORE series winner. The universe online. Science (New York, N.Y.) 329 (5995): 1028–1029.
A journal article with 3 authors
Coplan, P.M., Mitchnick, M. and Rosenberg, Z.F. 2004. Public health. Regulatory challenges in microbicide development. Science (New York, N.Y.) 304 (5679): 1911–1912.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
La Rocca, M., Creager, K.C., Galluzzo, D., Malone, S., Vidale, J.E., Sweet, J.R. and Wech, A.G. 2009. Cascadia tremor located near plate interface constrained by S minus P wave times. Science (New York, N.Y.) 323 (5914): 620–623.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Miller, M.B. 2013. Mathematics and Statistics for Financial Risk Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, .
An edited book
Abu el Ata, N. 2014. Solving the Dynamic Complexity Dilemma: Predictive and Prescriptive Business Management: Answering the Need for a New Paradigm. In Perks, M.J. (ed.) Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, .
A chapter in an edited book
Khoury, R. and Harder, D.W. 2016. Taylor Series. In: Harder, D.W. (ed.), Numerical Methods and Modelling for Engineering, 67–75. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

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 Palaeontologica Polonica.

Blog post
Andrew, E. 2014. Scientists Create ‘Evolved’ Protein That Stops Cancer Spreading In Mice. IFLScience. Downloaded from https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/scientists-create-evolved-protein-stops-cancer-spreading-mice/ on 30 October 2018. IFLScience.

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. 1997. Status of Information Needed to Complete Financial Audit of the District of Columbia’s Dedicated Highway Fund for Fiscal Year 1996. 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
Patra, P. 2009. Image scaling with three different interpolation techniques and their comparisons.Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CApp.

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
Crow, K. 2000. Snug as a Dog in a Baby Carrier Is the Latest Refrain for Pet Lovers. New York Times: 145.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Thomas 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Thomas 2003; Raddick and Szalay 2010).

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

  • Two authors: (Raddick and Szalay 2010)
  • Three or more authors: (La Rocca et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal titleActa Palaeontologica Polonica
AbbreviationActa Palaeontol. Pol.
ISSN (print)0567-7920
ISSN (online)1732-2421
ScopePalaeontology

Other styles