How to format your references using the Conservation Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Conservation Biology. 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
Ohman M. 2012. Biochemistry. A cold editor makes the adaptation. Science (New York, N.Y.) 335:805–806.
A journal article with 2 authors
Hammond EM, Giaccia AJ. 2002. Antiangiogenic therapy and p53. Science (New York, N.Y.) 297:471; discussion 471.
A journal article with 3 authors
Giovannoni S, Temperton B, Zhao Y. 2013. Giovannoni et al. reply. Nature 499:E4-5.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
Hellebrand E, Snow JE, Dick HJ, Hofmann AW. 2001. Coupled major and trace elements as indicators of the extent of melting in mid-ocean-ridge peridotites. Nature 410:677–681.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Millon T, Grossman S. 2007. Moderating Severe Personality Disorders. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Hospenthal DR, Rinaldi MG, editors. 2008. Diagnosis and Treatment of Human Mycoses. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ.
A chapter in an edited book
Ning X, Yan Y, Qu K, Li Z. 2010. Reliability Analysis on Wing Structures under the Gust Load. Pages 31–37 in Wang FL, Deng H, Gao Y, Lei J, editors. Artificial Intelligence and Computational Intelligence: International Conference, AICI 2010, Sanya, China, October 23-24, 2010, Proceedings, Part II. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

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 Conservation Biology.

Blog post
Andrew E. 2015, August 5. Horses Have Similar Facial Expressions As Humans And Chimps. IFLScience. Available from https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/horses-have-similar-facial-expressions-humans-and-chimps/ (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. 1996. Resources, Community, and Economic Development Information Systems Issue Area: Active Assignments. AA-96-30(2). 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
Best ML. 2013. Assistant Principals and Reform: A Socialization Paradox? 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
Koblin J. 2016, November 11. Hitting Delay When News Cuts Too Close. New York Times:AR19.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ohman 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Hammond & Giaccia 2002; Ohman 2012).

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

  • Two authors: (Hammond & Giaccia 2002)
  • Three or more authors: (Hellebrand et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal titleConservation Biology
AbbreviationConserv. Biol.
ISSN (print)0888-8892
ISSN (online)1523-1739
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecology
Nature and Landscape Conservation

Other styles