How to format your references using the Conservation Letters citation style

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

Smith, I. (2007). Chemistry. Single-molecule catalysis. Science, 315, 470–471.

A journal article with 2 authors

Goodell, M.A. & Rando, T.A. (2015). Stem cells and healthy aging. Science, 350, 1199–1204.

A journal article with 3 authors

Serganov, A., Huang, L. & Patel, D.J. (2008). Structural insights into amino acid binding and gene control by a lysine riboswitch. Nature, 455, 1263–1267.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Hosie, A.M., Wilkins, M.E., da Silva, H.M.A. & Smart, T.G. (2006). Endogenous neurosteroids regulate GABAA receptors through two discrete transmembrane sites. Nature, 444, 486–489.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

He, Z. (2016). Wavelet Analysis and Transient Signal Processing Applications for Power Systems. John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd, Singapore.

An edited book

Gandhi, A., Malhotra, N., Malhotra, J., Gupta, N. & Bora, N.M. (eds.). (2016). Principles of Critical Care in Obstetrics: Volume II. 1st ed. 2016. Springer India, New Delhi.

A chapter in an edited book

Simoff, M.J. (2013). Quality Control Mechanism for Endoscopic Procedures. In: Principles and Practice of Interventional Pulmonology (eds. Ernst, A. & Herth, F.J.F.). Springer, New York, NY, pp. 49–62.

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 Letters.

Blog post

Taub, B. (2015). Why Do Some Bees Produce Hallucinogenic Honey? [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/these-himalayan-bees-produce-hallucinogenic-honey-0/

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. (2016). Youth with Autism: Roundtable Views of Services Needed During the Transition into Adulthood ( No. GAO-17-109). 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

Sewell, A. (2013). A typology of sampling in hip-hop (Doctoral dissertation).

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. (2015). Puerto Rico Development Bank Goes to Court for $400 Million in Taxes. New York Times, B5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smith 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Smith 2007; Goodell & Rando 2015).

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

Two authors: (Goodell & Rando 2015)
Three or more authors: (Hosie et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Conservation Letters
Abbreviation	Conserv. Lett.
ISSN (online)	1755-263X
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Ecology Nature and Landscape Conservation