How to format your references using the China Geology citation style

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

Maxmen, A., 2010. Grassroots initiatives. Nature 466, S20.

A journal article with 2 authors

Elsner, C., Abel, B., 2014. Ultrafast high-resolution mass spectrometric finger pore imaging in latent finger prints. Sci. Rep. 4, 6905.

A journal article with 3 authors

Beeli, G., Esslen, M., Jäncke, L., 2005. Synaesthesia: when coloured sounds taste sweet. Nature 434, 38.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Lierz, M., Reinschmidt, M., Müller, H., Wink, M., Neumann, D., 2013. A novel method for semen collection and artificial insemination in large parrots (Psittaciformes). Sci. Rep. 3, 2066.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Seeber, P., Shander, A., 2012. Basics of Blood Management. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

An edited book

Wolff, K.-D., 2005. Raising of Microvascular Flaps: A Systematic Approach. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Schmid, A., 2009. What Does Emergence in Computer Simulations? Simulation between Epistemological and Ontological Emergence, in: Squazzoni, F. (Ed.), Epistemological Aspects of Computer Simulation in the Social Sciences: Second International Workshop, EPOS 2006, Brescia, Italy, October 5-6, 2006, Revised Selected and Invited Papers, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 60–68.

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 China Geology.

Blog post

Andrew, E., 2016. Phasing Out Fossil Fuels For Renewables May Not Be A Straightforward Swap [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/environment/phasing-out-fossil-fuels-renewables-may-not-be-straightforward-swap/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 1997. Transportation Infrastructure: Review of Project Selection Process for Five FHWA Discretionary Programs (No. RCED-98-14). 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

Haigh, C.V., 2017. More Than Skin Deep: The Impact of Self-Esteem, Desire for Lighter Skin, and Gender on the Mental Health of University Students in Thailand (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

St. John Kelly, E., 1994. PLAYING IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. New York Times 1317.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Maxmen, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Elsner and Abel, 2014; Maxmen, 2010).

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

Two authors: (Elsner and Abel, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Lierz et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	China Geology
ISSN (print)	2096-5192
Scope