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
McCann, K. 2007. Protecting biostructure. Nature 446 (7131): 29.
A journal article with 2 authors
Margules, C.R. and Pressey, R.L. 2000. Systematic conservation planning. Nature 405 (6783): 243–253.
A journal article with 3 authors
Bida, T.A., Killen, R.M. and Morgan, T.H. 2000. Discovery of calcium in Mercury’s atmosphere. Nature 404 (6774): 159–161.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Sliogeryte, K., Thorpe, S.D., Lee, D.A., Botto, L. and Knight, M.M. 2014. Stem cell differentiation increases membrane-actin adhesion regulating cell blebability, migration and mechanics. Scientific reports 4: 7307.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Ng, K.K. 2009. Complete Guide to Semiconductor Devices. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, .
An edited book
Drábek, P. 2013. Methods of Nonlinear Analysis: Applications to Differential Equations. In Milota, J. (ed.) Birkhäuser Advanced Texts Basler Lehrbücher. Springer, Basel, .
A chapter in an edited book
Haddad, S.A.P. and Serdijn, W.A. 2009. Optimal State Space Descriptions. In: Serdijn, W.A. (ed.), Ultra Low-Power Biomedical Signal Processing: An Analog Wavelet Filter Approach for Pacemakers, 75–94. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

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
Carpineti, A. 2016. Galactic ‘Eyelids’ Spotted In Distant Galaxy Merger. IFLScience. Downloaded from https://www.iflscience.com/space/galactic-eyelids-spotted-in-distant-galaxy-merger/ 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. 1988. Comparison of Amtrak Employee Injury Settlement Costs Under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act and State Workers’ Compensation Programs. 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
Dubin-Thaler, B.J. 2008. Evidence for hierarchical control of conserved, discrete motility types in crawling motility.Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, New York, NYpp.

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
Billard, M. 2010. Nothing Up His Sleeve, but on It. New York Times: E6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (McCann 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Margules and Pressey 2000; McCann 2007).

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

  • Two authors: (Margules and Pressey 2000)
  • Three or more authors: (Sliogeryte et al. 2014)

About the journal

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

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