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:

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
Daley, G.Q., 2007. Gametes from embryonic stem cells: a cup half empty or half full? Science 316, 409–410.
A journal article with 2 authors
Norio, P., Schildkraut, C.L., 2001. Visualization of DNA replication on individual Epstein-Barr virus episomes. Science 294, 2361–2364.
A journal article with 3 authors
Gonçalves, B., Balcan, D., Vespignani, A., 2013. Human mobility and the worldwide impact of intentional localized highly pathogenic virus release. Sci. Rep. 3, 810.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Liu, B., Wang, X., Chen, H., Wang, Z., Chen, D., Cheng, Y.-B., Zhou, C., Shen, G., 2013. Hierarchical silicon nanowires-carbon textiles matrix as a binder-free anode for high-performance advanced lithium-ion batteries. Sci. Rep. 3, 1622.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Vander Vorst, A., Rosen, A., Kotsuka, Y., 2005. RF/Microwave Interaction with Biological Tissues. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Gartner, G., Ortag, F. (Eds.), 2010. Cartography in Central and Eastern Europe: CEE 2009, Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
A chapter in an edited book
Mancarella, P., Toni, F., 2012. Semi-negative Abductive Logic Programs with Implicative Integrity Constraints: Semantics and Properties, in: Artikis, A., Craven, R., Kesim Çiçekli, N., Sadighi, B., Stathis, K. (Eds.), Logic Programs, Norms and Action: Essays in Honor of Marek J. Sergot on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 33–51.

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
Taub, B., 2016. Long Term Cocaine And Crystal Meth Use May Hinder Moral Judgement [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/brain/long-term-cocaine-and-crystal-meth-use-may-hinder-moral-judgement/ (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, 2000. Information Technology: INS Needs to Better Manage the Development of Its Enterprise Architecture (No. AIMD-00-212). 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
Luse, K.M., 2008. Invariants of knots, graphs, and Feynman diagrams (Doctoral dissertation). George Washington University, Washington, DC.

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., 2012. MetLife Settles Cases On Benefits. 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 (Daley, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Daley, 2007; Norio and Schildkraut, 2001).

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

  • Two authors: (Norio and Schildkraut, 2001)
  • Three or more authors: (Liu et al., 2013)

About the journal

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

Other styles