How to format your references using the Biotropica citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
von Huene, R. 2008. Geophysics. When seamounts subduct. Science 321: 1165–1166.
A journal article with 2 authors
Whitson, J. A., and A. D. Galinsky. 2008. Lacking control increases illusory pattern perception. Science 322: 115–117.
A journal article with 3 authors
Xin, H., Q. Liu, and B. Li. 2014. Non-contact fiber-optical trapping of motile bacteria: dynamics observation and energy estimation. Sci. Rep. 4: 6576.
A journal article with 20 or more authors
Mehl, M. R., S. Vazire, N. Ramírez-Esparza, R. B. Slatcher, and J. W. Pennebaker. 2007. Are women really more talkative than men? Science 317: 82.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Hannon, L., and J. Clift. 2010. General Hospital Care for People with Learning Disabilities. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., West Sussex, UK.
An edited book
Duval, B., J. van den Herik, S. Loiseau, and J. Filipe eds. 2015. Agents and Artificial Intelligence: 7th International Conference, ICAART 2015, Lisbon, Portugal, January 10-12, 2015, Revised Selected Papers. Springer International Publishing, Cham.
A chapter in an edited book
Albini, A., and S. Protti. 2016. The Solvent Issue. In S. Protti (Ed.) Paradigms in Green Chemistry and Technology. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science. pp. 77–85, Springer International Publishing, Cham.

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 Biotropica.

Blog post
Andrews, R. 2015. Ancient Megatsunami Reached Height of Manhattan Skyscrapers. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/ancient-megatsunami-reached-height-manhattan-skyscrapers/ [Accessed October 30, 2018].

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. 1976. Review of the State of Ohio’s Fiscal Year 1975 State Plan for the Education of Handicapped Children. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Page, J. A. 2009. Contested urban space: Competing discourses of urban development and environmental conservation in Playa Vista, California. 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
Saslow, L. 2009. Sorting Out their Goals, and Options. New York Times WE7.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (von Huene 2008).
This sentence cites two references (von Huene 2008, Whitson & Galinsky 2008).

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

  • Two authors: (Whitson & Galinsky 2008)
  • Three or more authors: (Mehl et al. 2007)

About the journal

Full journal titleBiotropica
AbbreviationBiotropica
ISSN (print)0006-3606
ISSN (online)1744-7429
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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