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:

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
Knapp, S. (2003). Dynamic diversity. Nature, 422, 475.
A journal article with 2 authors
Luk, Y.-Y. & Abbott, N.L. (2003). Surface-driven switching of liquid crystals using redox-active groups on electrodes. Science, 301, 623–626.
A journal article with 3 authors
Preis, T., Moat, H.S. & Stanley, H.E. (2013). Quantifying trading behavior in financial markets using Google Trends. Sci. Rep., 3, 1684.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Kuijpers, M.W.A., van Eck, D., Kemmere, M.F. & Keurentjes, J.T.F. (2002). Cavitation-induced reactions in high-pressure carbon dioxide. Science, 298, 1969–1971.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Narayanasamy, P. (2005). Postharvest Pathogens and Disease Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Seed, M.P. & Walsh, D.A. (eds.). (2008). Angiogenesis in Inflammation: Mechanisms and Clinical Correlates. Progress in Inflammation Research. Birkhäuser, Basel.
A chapter in an edited book
Thatcher, R.W. (2010). Higher-Order Network Reworking – New Findings. In: The Developmental Relations among Mind, Brain and Education: Essays in Honor of Robbie Case (eds. Ferrari, M. & Vuletic, L.). Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 83–104.

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
Andrew, E. (2013). Could a supernova be visible from Earth in the next 50 years? [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/space/could-supernova-be-visible-earth-next-50-years/

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. (2013). Education Research: Further Improvements Needed to Ensure Relevance and Assess Dissemination Efforts ( No. GAO-14-8). 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
Cao, L. (2017). Mathematical Modeling of Long-Term Productivity of Hydraulic- and HEG- Fractured Wells in Ultra-Low Permeability Reservoirs (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
Whiteside, K. (2016). After a Flat Tire, Finding Kindness, if Not a Spare. New York Times, B7.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Knapp 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Knapp 2003; Luk & Abbott 2003).

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

  • Two authors: (Luk & Abbott 2003)
  • Three or more authors: (Kuijpers et al. 2002)

About the journal

Full journal titleConservation Letters
AbbreviationConserv. Lett.
ISSN (online)1755-263X
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecology
Nature and Landscape Conservation

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