How to format your references using the Ecological Indicators citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Ecological Indicators. 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
Deweerdt, S., 2011. Prevention: activity is the best medicine. Nature 475, S16-7.
A journal article with 2 authors
Gandin, V., Topisirovic, I., 2013. Cell biology. Trans-HSF1 express. Science 341, 242–243.
A journal article with 3 authors
Ur, J.A., Karsgaard, P., Oates, J., 2007. Early urban development in the Near East. Science 317, 1188.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Römer, P., Hahn, S., Jordan, T., Strauss, T., Bonas, U., Lahaye, T., 2007. Plant pathogen recognition mediated by promoter activation of the pepper Bs3 resistance gene. Science 318, 645–648.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Soustelle, M., 2016. Thermodynamics of Surfaces and Capillary Systems. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Nakanishi, T.M., Tanoi, K. (Eds.), 2013. Agricultural Implications of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident. Springer Japan, Tokyo.
A chapter in an edited book
Fredriksson, O., Ljung, L., 2011. Modern Enterprise Systems as Enablers of Agile Development, in: Song, W.W., Xu, S., Wan, C., Zhong, Y., Wojtkowski, W., Wojtkowski, G., Linger, H. (Eds.), Information Systems Development: Asian Experiences. Springer, New York, NY, pp. 41–53.

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 Ecological Indicators.

Blog post
Andrew, E., 2014. Study Indicates Pregnancy Stress Can Affect Four Generations [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/study-indicates-pregnancy-stress-can-affect-four-generations/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 1991. Transition From School to Work: Linking Education and Worksite Training (No. HRD-91-105). 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
Johnson, A.S., 2017. Fatigue Behavior and Microstructure of Direct Laser Deposited Inconel 718 Alloy (Doctoral dissertation). Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS.

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
Poniewozik, J., 2017. The Rise of Surreality TV. New York Times C1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Deweerdt, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Deweerdt, 2011; Gandin and Topisirovic, 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Gandin and Topisirovic, 2013)
  • Three or more authors: (Römer et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal titleEcological Indicators
AbbreviationEcol. Indic.
ISSN (print)1470-160X
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
General Decision Sciences
Ecology

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