How to format your references using the Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Dalton R (2000) Older women scientists fight USGS over layoffs. US Geological Survey. Nature 404:219

A journal article with 2 authors

Melnick JG, Parkin G (2007) Cleaving mercury-alkyl bonds: a functional model for mercury detoxification by MerB. Science 317:225–227

A journal article with 3 authors

Rabitz HA, Hsieh MM, Rosenthal CM (2004) Quantum optimally controlled transition landscapes. Science 303:1998–2001

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Angotzi GN, Boi F, Zordan S, et al (2014) A programmable closed-loop recording and stimulating wireless system for behaving small laboratory animals. Sci Rep 4:5963

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Röpke G (2013) Nonequilibrium Statistical Physics. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany

An edited book

Ameratunga J (2016) Correlations of Soil and Rock Properties in Geotechnical Engineering. Springer India, New Delhi

A chapter in an edited book

Fujiyama-Nakamura S, Yamagata K, Kato S (2010) Hormonal Repression of miRNA Biosynthesis Through a Nuclear Steroid Hormone Receptor. In: Großhans H (ed) Regulation of microRNAs. Springer US, New York, NY, pp 43–55

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 Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology.

Blog post

Hale T (2017) Super Rare Wildcat Spotted In The Wild. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/super-rare-wildcat-spotted-in-the-wild/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (2014) Advanced Imaging Technology: TSA Needs Additional Information before Procuring Next-Generation Systems. 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

Kapatsinski V (2009) The architecture of grammar in artificial grammar learning: Formal biases in the acquisition of morphophonology and the nature of the learning task. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University

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

(nyt) SK (2002) World Briefing | Europe: Ukraine: President Tries To Fend Off Foes. New York Times A8

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Dalton 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Dalton 2000; Melnick and Parkin 2007).

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

Two authors: (Melnick and Parkin 2007)
Three or more authors: (Angotzi et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology
Abbreviation	Arch. Environ. Contam. Toxicol.
ISSN (print)	0090-4341
ISSN (online)	1432-0703
Scope	Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis Pollution General Medicine Toxicology