How to format your references using the Australian Systematic Botany citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Australian Systematic Botany. 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

Veevers J (2011) Geophysics: earth’s longest fossil rift-valley system. Nature 479, 304–306.

A journal article with 2 authors

Baker MB, Peter T (2008) Small-scale cloud processes and climate. Nature 451, 299–300.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ni S, Kanamori H, Helmberger D (2005) Seismology: energy radiation from the Sumatra earthquake. Nature 434, 582.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Mu X, Wu X, Zhang T, Go DB, Luo T (2014) Thermal transport in graphene oxide--from ballistic extreme to amorphous limit. Scientific Reports 4, 3909.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kodama KP, Hinnov LA (2014) ‘Rock Magnetic Cyclostratigraphy.’ (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Oxford)

An edited book

Margaria T, Steffen B (Eds) (2008) ‘Leveraging Applications of Formal Methods, Verification and Validation: Third International Symposium, ISoLA 2008, Porto Sani, Greece, October 13-15, 2008. Proceedings.’ (Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg)

A chapter in an edited book

Dasiopoulou S, Saathoff C, Mylonas P, Avrithis Y, Kompatsiaris Y, Staab S, Strinztis MG (2008) Introducing Context and Reasoning in Visual Content Analysis: An Ontology-Based Framework. ‘Semantic Multimedia and Ontologies: Theory and Applications’. (Eds Y Kompatsiaris, P Hobson) pp. 99–122. (Springer: London)

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 Australian Systematic Botany.

Blog post

Taub B (2016) Researchers Take Steps Towards Developing A ‘Universal’ Vaccine To Cure All Cancers. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/researchers-take-steps-towards-developing-universal-vaccine-cure-all-cancers/.

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 (1995) Student Financial Aid: Data Not Fully Utilized to Identify Inappropriately Awarded Loans and Grants. U.S. Government Printing Office, HEHS-95-89. (Washington, DC)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Solorzano E (2014) A mindfulness-based psycho-educational group for caregivers of older adults: A grant proposal. 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

Risen J (2016) Trump Can Target Journalists, Thanks to Obama. New York Times SR3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Veevers 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Baker and Peter 2008; Veevers 2011).

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

Two authors: (Baker and Peter 2008)
Three or more authors: (Mu et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Australian Systematic Botany
Abbreviation	Aust. Syst. Bot.
ISSN (print)	1030-1887
ISSN (online)	1446-5701
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Plant Science

Research and Writing Guides