How to format your references using the BioSocieties citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BioSocieties. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Mundy, D. (2005) Recruiters and academia. Lessons learned from a denied grant. Zen and the art of grant application. Nature 435(7040), 382.

A journal article with 2 authors

Müller, F.-J. & Schuppert, A. (2011) Few inputs can reprogram biological networks. Nature 478(7369), E4; discussion E4-5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Markos, C., Kubat, I. & Bang, O. (2014) Hybrid polymer photonic crystal fiber with integrated chalcogenide glass nanofilms. Scientific reports 4, 6057.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Svensen, H. et al. (2004) Release of methane from a volcanic basin as a mechanism for initial Eocene global warming. Nature 429(6991), 542–545.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Taber, D.F. (2008) Organic Synthesis: State of the 2005-2007, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Murgante, B. et al. eds. (2012) Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2012: 12th International Conference, Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, June 18-21, 2012, Proceedings, Part I, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Sweeney, J.D. (2009) Transcutaneous Muscle Stimulation. In: J. D. Ho & M. W. Kroll (eds.) TASER® Conducted Electrical Weapons: Physiology, Pathology, and Law. Boston, MA: Springer US, pp. 51–62.

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 BioSocieties.

Blog post

Davis, J. (2016) Ancient Horseshoe Crabs Are Dying In Scores Off The Japanese Coast. 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) Aviation Security: Additional Actions Needed to Meet Domestic and International Challenges, 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

Jansson, A. (2017) Stratigraphy, Landscape Evolution, and Past Environments at the Billy Big Spring Site, Montana. Doctoral dissertation. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona.

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

Brantley, B. (2017) Shhh, the Walls Have (Big) Ears. New York Times, 27 January:p. C4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Mundy 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Mundy 2005; Müller and Schuppert 2011).

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

Two authors: (Müller and Schuppert 2011)
Three or more authors: (Svensen et al. 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	BioSocieties
Abbreviation	Biosocieties
ISSN (print)	1745-8552
ISSN (online)	1745-8560
Scope	Health Policy Health(social science)