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

Stambolic V. 2015. Cancer: Precise control of localized signals. Nature 522: 38–40.

A journal article with 2 authors

Galiana I & Green C. 2009. Let the global technology race begin. Nature 462: 570–571.

A journal article with 3 authors

Goda K, Tsia KK & Jalali B. 2009. Serial time-encoded amplified imaging for real-time observation of fast dynamic phenomena. Nature 458: 1145–1149.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Akopyants NS, Kimblin N, Secundino N, Patrick R, Peters N, Lawyer P, Dobson DE, Beverley SM & Sacks DL. 2009. Demonstration of genetic exchange during cyclical development of Leishmania in the sand fly vector. Science (New York, N.Y.) 324: 265–268.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Atherton J, Gil F & Center for Chemical Process Safety. 2008. Incidents That Define Process Safety. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Elkadi M. 2007. Introduction à la résolution des systèmes polynomiaux (B Mourrain, Ed.). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Wyn J. 2015. Youth Policy and the Problematic Nexus Between Education and Employment. In: Riele K te, Gorur R, eds. Interrogating Conceptions of “Vulnerable Youth” in Theory, Policy and Practice. Rotterdam: SensePublishers, 49–61.

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

Evans K. 2016. Lizard Study Suggests Animal Extinction Models Are Not Accurate Enough. 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. 2012. Charter Schools: Additional Federal Attention Needed to Help Protect Access for Students with Disabilities. 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

Abraham C. 2017. How Are Nonresident African American Fathers Involved in Their Children’s Academic Success?

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

Chavez L. 2005. Fellow Republicans, Open Your Doors. New York Times: A31.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Stambolic, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Galiana & Green, 2009; Stambolic, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Galiana & Green, 2009)
Three authors: (Goda, Tsia, & Jalali, 2009)
4 or more authors: (Akopyants et al., 2009)

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