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

Bohannon J. 2008. The Gonzo Scientist. Calling all dancing scientists! Science (New York, N.Y.) 322: 186.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hillebrand R & Gösele U. 2004. Physics. Woodpiles for photons. Science (New York, N.Y.) 305: 187–188.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hsiang SM, Burke M & Miguel E. 2013. Quantifying the influence of climate on human conflict. Science (New York, N.Y.) 341: 1235367.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Richter C, Wunsch M, Rasheed M, Kötter I & Badran MI. 2001. Endoscopic exploration of Red Sea coral reefs reveals dense populations of cavity-dwelling sponges. Nature 413: 726–730.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Caban S, Mehlführer C, Rupp M & Wrulich M. 2011. Evaluation of HSDPA and LTE. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Mitton N, Loscri V & Mouradian A (Eds.). 2016. Ad-hoc, Mobile, and Wireless Networks: 15th International Conference, ADHOC-NOW 2016, Lille, France, July 4-6, 2016, Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

von Minckwitz G & Pirvulescu C. 2011. Treatment with Trastuzumab Beyond Progression. In: Sibilia M, Zielinski CC, Bartsch R, Grunt TW, eds. Drugs for HER-2-positive Breast Cancer. Basel: Springer, 61–71.

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. 2014. Two New Dwarf Planets Discovered in Outer Solar System. 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. 1994. National Test Facility: Civilian Agency Use of Supercomputers Not Feasible. 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

Carver JR. 2009. CMO: Chief Marketing Officer or chief “marginalized” officer.

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

Kishkovsky S. 2014. Russia: Ministry Takes Aim at a Human Rights Group. New York Times: A6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bohannon, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Hillebrand & Gösele, 2004; Bohannon, 2008).

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

Two authors: (Hillebrand & Gösele, 2004)
Three authors: (Hsiang, Burke, & Miguel, 2013)
4 or more authors: (Richter et al., 2001)

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

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