How to format your references using the Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 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

Quaglioni S: Nuclear physics: Close encounters of the alpha kind. Nature 2015, 528:42–43.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bettencourt L, West G: A unified theory of urban living. Nature 2010, 467:912–913.

A journal article with 3 authors

Chesler PM, Liu H, Adams A: Holographic vortex liquids and superfluid turbulence. Science 2013, 341:368–372.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Baker PA, Seltzer GO, Fritz SC, Dunbar RB, Grove MJ, Tapia PM, Cross SL, Rowe HD, Broda JP: The history of South American tropical precipitation for the past 25,000 years. Science 2001, 291:640–643.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sauter M: From GSM to LTE. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2010.

An edited book

White C (Ed): The Materiality of Individuality: Archaeological Studies of Individual Lives. Springer US; 2009.

A chapter in an edited book

Perotti L, Lasagna M, Clemente P, Dino GA, De Luca DA: Remote Sensing and Hydrogeological Methodologies for Irrigation Canal Water Losses Detection: The Naviglio di Bra Test Site (NW-Italy). In Engineering Geology for Society and Territory - Volume 3: River Basins, Reservoir Sedimentation and Water Resources. Edited by Lollino G, Arattano M, Rinaldi M, Giustolisi O, Marechal J-C, Grant GE. Springer International Publishing; 2015:19–22.

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 Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.

Blog post

Davis J: Biotech Company Claims To Have Successfully Used Gene Therapy In Attempt To Reverse Aging. IFLScience 2016,

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: National Science Foundation Management Review of Research Grant Award Recommendations. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1982.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Leslie MS: Understanding Individual Change in Practice: A Grounded Theory Study of Maternity Care Providers. 2012,

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

Brantley B: The Boy’s Rescued. He Isn’t Free. New York Times 2017,

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain.
ISSN (print)	1877-3435
Scope	General Environmental Science General Social Sciences