How to format your references using the Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences. 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.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Grimaldi, D. 2009. Paleontology. Pushing back amber production. Science 326: 51–52.
A journal article with 2 authors
Greenleaf, W.J., and Block, S.M. 2006. Single-molecule, motion-based DNA sequencing using RNA polymerase. Science 313: 801.
A journal article with 3 authors
Hasnaoui, A., Van Swygenhoven, H., and Derlet, P.M. 2003. Dimples on nanocrystalline fracture surfaces as evidence for shear plane formation. Science 300: 1550–1552.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
Little, W., Karatutlu, A., Bolmatov, D., Trachenko, K., Sapelkin, A.V., Cibin, G., Taylor, R., Mosselmans, F., Dent, A.J., and Mountjoy, G. 2014. Structural origin of light emission in germanium quantum dots. Sci. Rep. 4: 7372.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Paczosa, S., and Peruchini, C. 2013. Selling Professional and Financial Services Handbook Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Aiguier, M., F. Boulanger, D. Krob, and C. Marchal, Eds., 2014. Complex Systems Design & Management: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Complex Systems Design & Management CSD&M 2013 Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Mateo Pla, M.A., Lemus-Zúñiga, L.G., Montañana, J.-M., Pons, J., and Garza, A.A. 2016. A Review of Mobile Apps for Improving Quality of Life of Asthmatic and People with Allergies In: Chen, Y.-W., C. Torro, S. Tanaka, R.J. Howlett, and L. C. Jain, Eds., Innovation in Medicine and Healthcare 2015. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 51–64.

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 Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences.

Blog post
Taub, B. 2016. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/nasas-pumpkin-carving-contest-best-in-universe/ (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 2001. Hourly Fees Paid by Various Federal Agencies to Private Attorneys for Legal Services 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
Patra, P. 2009. Image scaling with three different interpolation techniques and their comparisons. 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
Corkery, M. 2017. Betty Dukes, Who Sued Walmart On Behalf of Workers, Is Dead at 67. New York Times B15.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Grimaldi, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Greenleaf and Block, 2006; Grimaldi, 2009).

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

  • Two authors: (Greenleaf and Block, 2006)
  • Three or more authors: (Little et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleCritical Reviews in Plant Sciences
AbbreviationCRC Crit. Rev. Plant Sci.
ISSN (print)0735-2689
ISSN (online)1549-7836
ScopePlant Science

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