How to format your references using the Agricultural Systems citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Agricultural Systems. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
Jenuwein, T., 2002. Molecular biology. An RNA-guided pathway for the epigenome. Science 297, 2215–2218.
A journal article with 2 authors
Celi, A., Tarruell, L., 2015. PHYSICS. Probing the edge with cold atoms. Science 349, 1450–1451.
A journal article with 3 authors
Simon, P., Gogotsi, Y., Dunn, B., 2014. Materials science. Where do batteries end and supercapacitors begin? Science 343, 1210–1211.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Yuan, Y., Wang, X., Mei, B., Zhang, D., Tang, A., An, L., He, X., Jiang, J., Liang, G., 2013. Labeling thiols on proteins, living cells, and tissues with enhanced emission induced by FRET. Sci. Rep. 3, 3523.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Chen, K.-H., 2016. Power Management Techniques for Integrated Circuit Design. John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd, Singapore.
An edited book
Puglisi, J. (Ed.), 2009. Biophysics and the Challenges of Emerging Threats, NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
A chapter in an edited book
Hammes, S., 2011. Benign Tumors and Organoid Nevi, in: Raulin, C., Karsai, S. (Eds.), Laser and IPL Technology in Dermatology and Aesthetic Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 43–59.

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 Agricultural Systems.

Blog post
Andrew, D., 2016. Forget Iron Man: Skintight Suits Are The Future Of Robotic Exoskeletons [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/technology/forget-iron-man-skintight-suits-are-the-future-of-robotic-exoskeletons/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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. Program Status: Naval Surface Fire Support (No. NSIAD-97-179R). 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
Nuno, Z.S., 2012. Visible and mid-infrared optical studies of plasmon and phonon resonant nanoparticles using apertureless near-field scanning optical microscopy (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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
Stewart, J.B., 2016. In Chamber of Secrets: An Author’s Net Worth. New York Times A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Jenuwein, 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Celi and Tarruell, 2015; Jenuwein, 2002).

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

  • Two authors: (Celi and Tarruell, 2015)
  • Three or more authors: (Yuan et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleAgricultural Systems
AbbreviationAgric. Syst.
ISSN (print)0308-521X
ScopeAgronomy and Crop Science
Animal Science and Zoology

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