How to format your references using the Biogeosciences Discussions citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biogeosciences Discussions. 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
Dobson, J. E.: Big Brother has evolved, Nature, 458, 968, 2009.
A journal article with 2 authors
Sekiya, S. and Suzuki, A.: Direct conversion of mouse fibroblasts to hepatocyte-like cells by defined factors, Nature, 475, 390–393, 2011.
A journal article with 3 authors
Shin, C., Feng, Y., and Manley, J. L.: Dephosphorylated SRp38 acts as a splicing repressor in response to heat shock, Nature, 427, 553–558, 2004.
A journal article with 100 or more authors
Lim, K.-H., Ancrile, B. B., Kashatus, D. F., and Counter, C. M.: Tumour maintenance is mediated by eNOS, Nature, 452, 646–649, 2008.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Ytterdal, T., Cheng, Y., and Fjeldly, T. A.: Device Modeling for Analog and RF CMOS Circuit Design, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2003.
An edited book
Lammert, C. and Sarkowsky, K. (Eds.): Travelling Concepts: Negotiating Diversity in Canada and Europe, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden, 313 p. 2 illus pp., 2010.
A chapter in an edited book
Piccardi, C. and Casagrandi, R.: Remarks on Epidemic Spreading in Scale-Free Networks, in: Modelling, Estimation and Control of Networked Complex Systems, edited by: Chiuso, A., Fortuna, L., Frasca, M., Rizzo, A., Schenato, L., and Zampieri, S., Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 77–89, 2009.

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 Biogeosciences Discussions.

Blog post
Infographic: How UK Health Spending Compares to Other Countries:

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: High Speed Rail: Learning From Service Start-ups, Prospects for Increased Industry Investment, and Federal Oversight Plans, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2010.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Wilson, P.: A Case Study of the Efficacy of Middle College on Educational Advancement, Doctoral dissertation, Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO, 2015.

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, M.: THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: The Democrats; Clinton Accuses Bush of Dodging Responsibilities, New York Times, 30th July, A20, 1992.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Dobson, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Dobson, 2009; Sekiya and Suzuki, 2011).

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

  • Two authors: (Sekiya and Suzuki, 2011)
  • Three or more authors: (Lim et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleBiogeosciences Discussions
AbbreviationBiogeosci. Discuss.
ISSN (online)1810-6285
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Earth-Surface Processes

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