How to format your references using the Biological Conservation citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biological Conservation. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
Bignami, G.F., 2000. A 1,000-year chain of thinkers. Nature 404, 227.
A journal article with 2 authors
Roberson, E.D., Mucke, L., 2006. 100 years and counting: prospects for defeating Alzheimer’s disease. Science 314, 781–784.
A journal article with 3 authors
Uz, B.M., Yoder, J.A., Osychny, V., 2001. Pumping of nutrients to ocean surface waters by the action of propagating planetary waves. Nature 409, 597–600.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Eckle, P., Pfeiffer, A.N., Cirelli, C., Staudte, A., Dörner, R., Muller, H.G., Büttiker, M., Keller, U., 2008. Attosecond ionization and tunneling delay time measurements in helium. Science 322, 1525–1529.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Cumming, D., 2010. Private Equity. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Bonifacio, G.T. (Ed.), 2012. Feminism and Migration: Cross-Cultural Engagements, International Perspectives on Migration. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
A chapter in an edited book
Dolezal, D., 2016. Croatia: From Welfare to Responsibility, in: Arnull, E., Fox, D. (Eds.), Cultural Perspectives on Youth Justice: Connecting Theory, Policy and International Practice. Palgrave Macmillan UK, London, pp. 87–108.

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 Biological Conservation.

Blog post
Andrew, E., 2014. New Study Sheds Light On The Origin Of Dolphins [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/new-study-sheds-light-origin-dolphins/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 1972. Cost Information on the Desegregation of the School Systems in Mobile County and Wilcox County, Alabama (No. B-164031(1)). 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
Ho, T., 2012. The influence of physical activity and unsafe neighborhoods on the development of gestational diabetes among women in California (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
Murphy, M.J.O., 2016. Valentines, Vengeful and Comic, Through an Antique Lens. New York Times C28.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bignami, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Bignami, 2000; Roberson and Mucke, 2006).

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

  • Two authors: (Roberson and Mucke, 2006)
  • Three or more authors: (Eckle et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleBiological Conservation
AbbreviationBiol. Conserv.
ISSN (print)0006-3207
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Nature and Landscape Conservation

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