How to format your references using the Astrobiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Astrobiology (AST). 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

Fuhrer MS. Journal Club. A Physicist Peels Back the Layers of Excitement about Graphene. Nature 2009;459(7250):1037.

A journal article with 2 authors

Poulsen H and Nissen P. Structural Biology. The Inner Workings of a Dynamic Duo. Science 2012;335(6067):416–417.

A journal article with 3 authors

Yohe G, Andronova N and Schlesinger M. Climate. To Hedge or Not against an Uncertain Climate Future? Science 2004;306(5695):416–417.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Martinez-Levasseur LM, Birch-Machin MA, Bowman A, et al. Whales Use Distinct Strategies to Counteract Solar Ultraviolet Radiation. Sci Rep 2013;3:2386.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Fasano A. Engineer Your Own Success. John Wiley & Sons, Inc: Hoboken, NJ; 2014.

An edited book

Bělohlávek R. Fuzzy Equational Logic. (Vychodil V. ed). Studies in Fuzziness and Soft Computing. Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

Miyamoto H, Arai M, Kawarada H, et al. Electronic Devices. In: Wide Bandgap Semiconductors: Fundamental Properties and Modern Photonic and Electronic Devices. (Takahashi K, Yoshikawa A, and Sandhu A. eds) Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg; 2007; pp. 231–280.

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 Astrobiology.

Blog post

Andrew E. Vegetarians Cause Environmental Damage, But Meat Eaters Aren’t Off The Hook. IFLScience; 2014. [Last accessed: 10/30/2018].

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. Advance Sheets: Volume 74, Decisions of the Comptroller General of the United States. U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC; 1995.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Jorge MH. Relationships Among Poverty, Financial Services, Human Capital, Risk Coping, and Natural Resources: Evidence from El Salvador and Bolivia. Doctoral dissertation. Ohio State University: Columbus, OH; 2004.

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

Wines M and Shorey R. Inside the Uproar Over a Government-Led Search for Voter Fraud. New York Times 2017;A14.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Fuhrer, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Fuhrer, 2009; Poulsen and Nissen, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Poulsen and Nissen, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Martinez-Levasseur et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Astrobiology
ISSN (print)	1531-1074
ISSN (online)	1557-8070
Scope