How to format your references using the Biota Neotropica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biota Neotropica. 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 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

PRICE, R.M. 2012. IBI* series winner. How we got here: an inquiry-based activity about human evolution. Science 338(6114):1554–1555.

A journal article with 2 authors

JASPARS, M. & CHALLIS, G. 2014. Microbiology: a talented genus. Nature 506(7486):38–39.

A journal article with 3 authors

MORAIS-CABRAL, J.H., ZHOU, Y. & MACKINNON, R. 2001. Energetic optimization of ion conduction rate by the K+ selectivity filter. Nature 414(6859):37–42.

A journal article with 20 or more authors

STEIDL, C. et al. 2011. MHC class II transactivator CIITA is a recurrent gene fusion partner in lymphoid cancers. Nature 471(7338):377–381.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

BITTON, G. 2014. Microbiology of Drinking Water. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

OOSTEROM, P. van, ZLATANOVA, S., PENNINGA, F. & FENDEL, E.M., eds. 2008. Advances in 3D Geoinformation Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

RIEKE, G.H. 2008. Formation and Evolution of Terrestrial Planets in Protoplanetary and Debris Disks. In Exoplanets: Detection, Formation, Properties, Habitability (J. W. Mason, ed.) Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, p.89–113.

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 Biota Neotropica.

Blog post

ANDREW, E. 2015. Can You Really Be GM-free? Why New European Laws Pose A Moral Dilemma. 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. 2006. Federal Aviation Administration: An Analysis of the Financial Viability of the Airport and Airway Trust Fund.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

PENG, E. 2017. Teaching and Coaching Brazilian Jiujitsu: An Instructional Manual. 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

ALMOSAWA, S. & HUBBARD, B. 2016. Saudi-Led Airstrikes Blamed for Massacre of Scores of Yemeni Mourners. New York Times A14.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Price 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Price 2012, Jaspars & Challis 2014).

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

Two authors: (Jaspars & Challis 2014)
Three or more authors: (Steidl et al. 2011)

About the journal

Full journal title	Biota Neotropica
ISSN (print)	1676-0603
ISSN (online)	1676-0611
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics