How to format your references using the Crop Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Crop Science. 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
Ferrini-Mundy, J. 2013. Science education. Driven by diversity. Science 340(6130): 278.
A journal article with 2 authors
Berg, P., and I.R. Lehman. 2007. Retrospective: Arthur Kornberg (1918-2007). Science 318(5856): 1564.
A journal article with 3 authors
Rogers Hollingsworth, J., K.H. Müller, and E.J. Hollingsworth. 2008. China: The end of the science superpowers. Nature 454(7203): 412–413.
A journal article with 6 or more authors
Song, M.S., L. Salmena, A. Carracedo, A. Egia, F. Lo-Coco, et al. 2008. The deubiquitinylation and localization of PTEN are regulated by a HAUSP-PML network. Nature 455(7214): 813–817.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Chaudhry, A., D. Coetsee, E. Bakker, S. Varughese, S. McIlwaine, et al. 2014. 2015 Interpretation and Application of International Financial Reporting Standards. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Campbell, T. 2007. Outlook 2007: Beyond the Manual (J. Hassell, editor). Apress, Berkeley, CA.
A chapter in an edited book
de Bruijn, H., E.F. ten Heuvelhof, and R. in ‘t Veld. 2010. An Open Process. In: ten Heuvelhof, E. and in ’t Veld, R., editors, Process Management: Why Project Management Fails in Complex Decision Making Processes. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. p. 81–101

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 Crop Science.

Blog post
Fang, J. 2015. Mutated Plants Can Remove TNT From The Soil. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/mutated-plants-break-down-tnt-soil/ (accessed 30 October 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. 1995. High Risk Series: Student Financial Aid. 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
Klimek, D.L. 2008. Antigone’s reach: A feminine model for today’s businesswoman.

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. 2010. Cities in Debt Turn to States, Adding Strain. New York Times: B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ferrini-Mundy, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Berg and Lehman, 2007; Ferrini-Mundy, 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Berg and Lehman, 2007)
  • Three or more authors: (Song et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleCrop Science
AbbreviationCrop Sci.
ISSN (print)0011-183X
ScopeAgronomy and Crop Science

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