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
Gwynne, P. 2013. Microbiology: There’s gold in them there bugs. Nature, 495(7440): S12-3.
A journal article with 2 authors
Prejean, S.G., and Haney, M.M. 2014. Geophysics. Shaking up volcanoes. Science (New York, N.Y.), 345(6192): 39.
A journal article with 3 authors
Hays, G.C., Houghton, J.D.R., and Myers, A.E. 2004. Endangered species: Pan-Atlantic leatherback turtle movements. Nature, 429(6991): 522.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Titov, V., Rabinovich, A.B., Mofjeld, H.O., Thomson, R.E., and González, F.I. 2005. The global reach of the 26 December 2004 Sumatra tsunami. Science (New York, N.Y.), 309(5743): 2045–2048.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Crook, T., and Kemp, P.A. 2010. Transforming Private Landlords. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.
An edited book
Cleophas, T.J. 2010. SPSS for Starters: SPSS for Starters. Edited by A.H. Zwinderman. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
A chapter in an edited book
Saeidnia, S., Gohari, A.R., Manayi, A., and Kourepaz-Mahmoodabadi, M. 2016. Biological and Pharmacological Activity. In Satureja: Ethnomedicine, Phytochemical Diversity and Pharmacological Activities. Edited by A.R. Gohari, A. Manayi, and M. Kourepaz-Mahmoodabadi. Springer International Publishing, Cham. pp. 41–56.

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
Andrew, E. 2014. How Fast Are You Moving Through The Universe? IFLScience. Available from https://www.iflscience.com/space/how-fast-are-we-moving-through-universe/. [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. 1994. Continuing Professional Education Study: Budget Analysts in the Federal Government, GS-560 Series. 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
Li, K. 2010. An explicative model of leisure-time physical activities among church-going African Americans in Indianapolis. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

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
Walsh, M.W. 2017. False Rumors Are Flying About Insurance Claims. New York Times,: A18.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gwynne 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Gwynne 2013, Prejean and Haney 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Prejean and Haney 2014)
  • Three or more authors: (Titov et al. 2005)

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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