How to format your references using the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (BJLS). 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

Lieberman PM. 2014. Virology. Epstein-Barr virus turns 50. Science (New York, N.Y.) 343: 1323–1325.

A journal article with 2 authors

Slabbekoorn H & Peet M. 2003. Ecology: Birds sing at a higher pitch in urban noise. Nature 424: 267.

A journal article with 3 authors

Brechbühl J, Klaey M & Broillet MC. 2008. Grueneberg ganglion cells mediate alarm pheromone detection in mice. Science (New York, N.Y.) 321: 1092–1095.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Tsuruta H, Oura Y, Ebihara M, Ohara T & Nakajima T. 2014. First retrieval of hourly atmospheric radionuclides just after the Fukushima accident by analyzing filter-tapes of operational air pollution monitoring stations. Scientific reports 4: 6717.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Todinov M. 2015. Reliability and Risk Models. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Stewart JM, Oosterhuis DM, Heitholt JJ & Mauney JR (Eds.). 2010. Physiology of Cotton. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

A chapter in an edited book

Zamfirescu C, Dincer I, Verrelli T & Wagar WR. 2010. Residential Solar Power Generation Systems for Better Environment. In: Dincer I, Hepbasli A, Midilli A, Karakoc TH, eds. Global Warming: Engineering Solutions. Boston, MA: Springer US, 89–107.

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 Journal of the Linnean Society.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2015. New Study Reveals What A Single Energy Drink Does To Your Body. IFLScience.

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. 1978. Review of Army’s Efforts To Develop TACFIRE. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ashrafzadeh MH. 2008. Provision of community services for the mentally challenged population in Iran.

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

Johnson G. 2017. Awakenings. New York Times: BR13.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Lieberman, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Slabbekoorn & Peet, 2003; Lieberman, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Slabbekoorn & Peet, 2003)
Three authors: (Brechbühl, Klaey, & Broillet, 2008)
4 or more authors: (Tsuruta et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
Abbreviation	Biol. J. Linn. Soc. Lond.
ISSN (print)	0024-4066
ISSN (online)	1095-8312
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics