How to format your references using the Canadian Geotechnical Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Canadian Geotechnical Journal. 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
Minelli, A. 2004. Developmental biology. Bits and pieces. Science (New York, N.Y.), 306(5702): 1693–1694.
A journal article with 2 authors
Gros, J., and Tabin, C.J. 2014. Vertebrate limb bud formation is initiated by localized epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition. Science (New York, N.Y.), 343(6176): 1253–1256.
A journal article with 3 authors
Ji, M., Odelius, M., and Gaffney, K.J. 2010. Large angular jump mechanism observed for hydrogen bond exchange in aqueous perchlorate solution. Science (New York, N.Y.), 328(5981): 1003–1005.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Moraes, C.B., Giardini, M.A., Kim, H., Franco, C.H., Araujo-Junior, A.M., Schenkman, S., Chatelain, E., and Freitas-Junior, L.H. 2014. Nitroheterocyclic compounds are more efficacious than CYP51 inhibitors against Trypanosoma cruzi: implications for Chagas disease drug discovery and development. Scientific reports, 4: 4703.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Schattke, W., and Díez Muiño, R. 2013. Quantum Monte Carlo Programming. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.
An edited book
Hess, D.C. (Editor). 2015. Cell Therapy for Brain Injury. Springer International Publishing, Cham.
A chapter in an edited book
Dominitz, A., Angenent, S., and Tannenbaum, A. 2008. On the Computation of Optimal Transport Maps Using Gradient Flows and Multiresolution Analysis. In Recent Advances in Learning and Control. Edited by V.D. Blondel, S.P. Boyd, and H. Kimura. Springer, London. pp. 65–78.

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 Canadian Geotechnical Journal.

Blog post
Davis, J. 2015. Nitrous Oxide Alters People’s Brainwaves. IFLScience. Available from https://www.iflscience.com/brain/nitrous-oxide-alters-peoples-brainwaves/. [accessed 30 October 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. 2004. Project SAFECOM: Key Cross-Agency Emergency Communications Effort Requires Stronger Collaboration. 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
Shimazoe, J. 2012. The power of forgotten opinions: Why an organization chooses inaction over the public’s safety. Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.

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
Hollander, S. 1999. Home Woes Continue. New York Times,: 810.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Minelli 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Minelli 2004, Gros and Tabin 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Gros and Tabin 2014)
  • Three or more authors: (Moraes et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleCanadian Geotechnical Journal
AbbreviationCan. Geotech. J.
ISSN (print)0008-3674
ISSN (online)1208-6010
ScopeGeotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology

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