How to format your references using the Centaurus citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Centaurus. 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	Download the output style file
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

Mascola, J. R. (2015) HIV. The modern era of HIV-1 vaccine development. Science (New York, N.Y.), 349(6244), 139–140.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ramachandran, V. and Chen, X. (2008) Degradation of microRNAs by a family of exoribonucleases in Arabidopsis. Science (New York, N.Y.), 321(5895), 1490–1492.

A journal article with 3 authors

Grey, M., Haggart, J. W., and Smith, P. L. (2008) Variation in evolutionary patterns across the geographic range of a fossil bivalve. Science (New York, N.Y.), 322(5905), 1238–1241.

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Zhang, Q., Du, Q., Jiao, T., Zhang, Z., et al. (2013) Rationally designed porous polystyrene encapsulated zirconium phosphate nanocomposite for highly efficient fluoride uptake in waters. Scientific reports, 3, 2551.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Verdu, J. (2012) Oxidative Ageing of Polymers (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).

An edited book

Reid, J. (2013) JavaScript Programmer’s Reference T. Valentine (ed.) (Berkeley, CA: Apress).

A chapter in an edited book

Ruan, T., Li, Y., Wang, H., and Zhao, L. (2016) From Queriability to Informativity, Assessing “Quality in Use” of DBpedia and YAGO, in:, H. Sack, E. Blomqvist, M. d’Aquin, C. Ghidini, et al. (eds.), The Semantic Web. Latest Advances and New Domains: 13th International Conference, ESWC 2016, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, May 29 -- June 2, 2016, Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Cham: Springer International Publishing), pp. 52–68.

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 Centaurus.

Blog post

Andrew, D. (2016) [online] In Defence Of Racer Snakes – The Demons Of Planet Earth II (They’re Only After A Meal). IFLScience, IFLScience. Available online at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/in-defence-of-racer-snakes-the-demons-of-planet-earth-ii-theyre-only-after-a-meal/ (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 (1976) Bilingual Education: An Unmet Need (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

Akiyama, K. M. (2017) Taste Detection in Post-Laryngectomy Head and Neck Cancer Survivors and Its Effect on Dietary Intake and Malnutrition Status. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach.

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

Nagourney, A., Lovett, I., and Pérez-Peña, R. (2015, 2 December) Shooting Rampage Sows Terror in California. New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Mascola, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Mascola, 2015; Ramachandran & Chen, 2008).

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

Two authors: (Ramachandran & Chen, 2008)
Three authors: (Grey, Haggart, & Smith, 2008)
4 or more authors: (Zhang et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Centaurus
Abbreviation	Centaurus
ISSN (print)	0008-8994
ISSN (online)	1600-0498
Scope	History and Philosophy of Science