How to format your references using the Biodegradation citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biodegradation. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Keppler H (2014) Geology: Earth’s deep water reservoir. Nature 507:174–175
A journal article with 2 authors
Heilbron JL, Bynum WF (2002) 1902 and all that. Nature 415:15–18
A journal article with 3 authors
Rubie DC, Gessmann CK, Frost DJ (2004) Partitioning of oxygen during core formation on the Earth and Mars. Nature 429:58–61
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Tsai M-Y, Wang S, Heidinger JM, et al (2006) A mitotic lamin B matrix induced by RanGTP required for spindle assembly. Science 311:1887–1893

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Pruitt G (2016) The Ultimate Algorithmic Trading System Toolbox + Website. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ
An edited book
Hong S, Auciello O, Wouters D (eds) (2014) Emerging Non-Volatile Memories. Springer US, Boston, MA
A chapter in an edited book
Haim A, Portnov BA (2013) Biological Clock and its Entrainment by Photoperiod. In: Portnov BA (ed) Light Pollution as a New Risk Factor for Human Breast and Prostate Cancers. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 25–33

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 Biodegradation.

Blog post
Hamilton K (2015) Quadruple Amputee Dog Receives Four Prosthetic Paws. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/quadruple-amputee-dog-receives-four-prosthetic-paws/. 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 (1994) Strategic Airlift: Further Efforts Can Be Taken to Extend Aircraft Service Life. 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
Chung D (2017) Health Information Infrastructure: Flows and Frictions. 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
Walsh MW (2015) A Puerto Rican Utility Makes Progress Toward a Debt Deal. New York Times B2

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Keppler 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Heilbron and Bynum 2002; Keppler 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Heilbron and Bynum 2002)
  • Three or more authors: (Tsai et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal titleBiodegradation
AbbreviationBiodegradation
ISSN (print)0923-9820
ISSN (online)1572-9729
ScopeBioengineering
Environmental Chemistry
Environmental Engineering
Pollution
Microbiology

Other styles