How to format your references using the American Journal of Botany citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for American Journal of Botany (AJB). 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:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX 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

Gershon, D. 2003. Complex political, ethical and legal issues surround research on human embryonic stem cells. Nature 422: 928–929.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hines, P. J., and L. M. Zahn. 2012. Plant metabolism. Green pathways. Introduction. Science (New York, N.Y.) 336: 1657.

A journal article with 3 authors

Roche, D., D. Paillard, and E. Cortijo. 2004. Constraints on the duration and freshwater release of Heinrich event 4 through isotope modelling. Nature 432: 379–382.

A journal article with 9 or more authors

Striemer, C. C., T. R. Gaborski, J. L. McGrath, and P. M. Fauchet. 2007. Charge- and size-based separation of macromolecules using ultrathin silicon membranes. Nature 445: 749–753.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kumacheva, E., and P. Garstecki. 2011. Microfluidic Reactors for Polymer Particles. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.

An edited book

Carl, S. 2007. Nonsmooth Variational Problems and Their Inequalities: Comparison Principles and Applications. V. L. Khoi, and D. Motreanu [eds.],. Springer US, Boston, MA.

A chapter in an edited book

Eakin, C. M., J. M. Lough, and S. F. Heron. 2009. Climate Variability and Change: Monitoring Data and Evidence for Increased Coral Bleaching Stress. In M. J. H. van Oppen, and J. M. Lough [eds.], Coral Bleaching: Patterns, Processes, Causes and Consequences, Ecological Studies, 41–67. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

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 American Journal of Botany.

Blog post

Evans, K. 2017. Do Superheroes Make Children More Aggressive Rather Than Heroic? IFLScience. Website https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/do-superheroes-make-children-more-aggressive-rather-than-heroic/ [accessed 30 October 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

Government Accountability Office. 2006. Weather Forecasting: National Weather Service Is Planning to Improve Service and Gain Efficiency, but Impacts of Potential Changes Are Not Yet Known. 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

Dias, J. 2014. Factors associated with poor oral health among older adults. 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

Billard, M. 2010. A New Bag, A New Space. New York Times: E9.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gershon, 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Gershon, 2003; Hines and Zahn, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Hines and Zahn, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Striemer et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	American Journal of Botany
Abbreviation	Am. J. Bot.
ISSN (print)	0002-9122
ISSN (online)	1537-2197
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Plant Science Genetics