How to format your references using the Ecological Informatics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Ecological Informatics. 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

Antonelli, A., 2015. Biodiversity: Multiple origins of mountain life. Nature 524, 300–301.

A journal article with 2 authors

Enright, M.C., Spratt, B.G., 2011. Genomics. The genomic view of bacterial diversification. Science 331, 407–409.

A journal article with 3 authors

Komatitsch, D., Ritsema, J., Tromp, J., 2002. The spectral-element method, Beowulf computing, and global seismology. Science 298, 1737–1742.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Aigner, S., Pietra, L.D., Japha, Y., Entin-Wohlman, O., David, T., Salem, R., Folman, R., Schmiedmayer, J., 2008. Long-range order in electronic transport through disordered metal films. Science 319, 1226–1229.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Laykin, E., 2013. Investigative Computer Forensics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Voelkel, N.F., Schranz, D. (Eds.), 2015. The Right Ventricle in Health and Disease, Respiratory Medicine. Springer, New York, NY.

A chapter in an edited book

Jung, J., Kim, D., 2010. Wireless Network of Collaborative Physiological Signal Devices in a U-Healthcare System, in: Tomar, G.S., Chang, R.-S., Gervasi, O., Kim, T.-H., Bandyopadhyay, S.K. (Eds.), Advanced Computer Science and Information Technology: Second International Conference, AST 2010, Miyazaki, Japan, June 23-25, 2010. Proceedings, Communications in Computer and Information Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 39–55.

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 Informatics.

Blog post

Hamilton, K., 2015. Three Ways That The Universe Could End [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/space/three-ways-universe-could-end/ (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, 2015. International Education Assistance: USAID Has Implemented Primary Grade Reading Programs but Has Not Yet Measured Progress toward Its Strategic Goal (No. GAO-15-479). 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

Starkenberg, L.I., 2015. Health science student’s knowledge of oral health and preventive practices (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

JOSEPH KELLY; Joseph Kelly of Croton-on-Hudson is a member of its Planning Board Watch Committee, a citizens group interested in local planning issues, 1984. SHOPPING AROUND FOR PROPERTY TAX IS THREAT TO ORDER. New York Times 11WC26.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Antonelli, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Antonelli, 2015; Enright and Spratt, 2011).

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

Two authors: (Enright and Spratt, 2011)
Three or more authors: (Aigner et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Ecological Informatics
Abbreviation	Ecol. Inform.
ISSN (print)	1574-9541
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Computational Theory and Mathematics Computer Science Applications Ecological Modelling Ecology Applied Mathematics Modelling and Simulation