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

Hodson, R. 2015. Prostate cancer: 4 big questions. Nature 528: S137.

A journal article with 2 authors

Wang, Z., and H. Lin. 2004. Nanos maintains germline stem cell self-renewal by preventing differentiation. Science (New York, N.Y.) 303: 2016–2019.

A journal article with 3 authors

Zhang, C., C. T. Chan, and X. Hu. 2014. Broadband focusing and collimation of water waves by zero refractive index. Scientific reports 4: 6979.

A journal article with 9 or more authors

Yang, D., J. Carpena-Núñez, L. F. Fonseca, A. Biaggi-Labiosa, and G. W. Hunter. 2014. Shape-controlled synthesis of palladium and copper superlattice nanowires for high-stability hydrogen sensors. Scientific reports 4: 3773.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Dacey, J. S., M. D. Mack, and L. B. Fiore. 2016. Your Anxious Child. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.

An edited book

Dabbagh, A., F. Esmailian, and S. F. Aranki eds. . 2014. Postoperative Critical Care for Cardiac Surgical Patients. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Ratnarajah, N., A. Simmons, and A. Hojjatoleslami. 2011. Probabilistic Clustering and Shape Modelling of White Matter Fibre Bundles Using Regression Mixtures. In G. Fichtinger, A. Martel, and T. Peters [eds.], Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention – MICCAI 2011: 14th International Conference, Toronto, Canada, September 18-22, 2011, Proceedings, Part II, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 25–32. 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

O`Callaghan, J. 2015. New Type Of Mid-Sized Black Hole Found. IFLScience. Website https://www.iflscience.com/space/new-type-mid-sized-black-hole-found-distant-galaxy/ [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. 1991. Tax System Modernization: Status of On-Line Files Initiative and Telecommunications Planning. 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

Adaligil, E. 2010. Electron transfer through self-assembled monolayers of alkaneselenols and alkanethiols on mercury electrode. 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

Kelly, C. 2013. Over 50, and Under No Illusions. New York Times: BU1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hodson, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Wang and Lin, 2004; Hodson, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Wang and Lin, 2004)
Three or more authors: (Yang et al., 2014)

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