How to format your references using the Ecological Processes citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Ecological Processes. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Gravitz L (2014) Liver cancer. Nature 516:S1

A journal article with 2 authors

Simmons NA, Gurrola H (2000) Multiple seismic discontinuities near the base of the transition zone in the Earth’s mantle. Nature 405:559–562

A journal article with 3 authors

Jimenez-Sanchez G, Childs B, Valle D (2001) Human disease genes. Nature 409:853–855

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Endres NF, Yoshioka C, Milligan RA, Vale RD (2006) A lever-arm rotation drives motility of the minus-end-directed kinesin Ncd. Nature 439:875–878

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Walter RJ (1998) Practical Compliance with the EPA Risk Management Program. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Parks WC, Mecham RP (eds) (2011) Extracellular Matrix Degradation. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Goldberg AV, Kaplan H, Werneck RF (2007) Better Landmarks Within Reach. In: Demetrescu C (ed) Experimental Algorithms: 6th International Workshop, WEA 2007, Rome, Italy, June 6-8, 2007. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 38–51

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 Processes.

Blog post

Taub B (2016) New Evidence Suggests Humans May Have Pushed The “Hobbit” People To Extinction. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/new-evidence-suggests-humans-may-have-pushed-hobbit-people-extinction/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1998) Schools and Libraries Corporation: Actions Needed to Strengthen Program Integrity Operations Before Committing Funds. 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

Whitman S (2012) Operational risk and financial institution leaders’ decision making: A quantitative descriptive correlation study. Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix

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

Barron J (2016) Bar Cars Are Coming Back, but Don’t Expect a Seat. New York Times A20

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gravitz 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Simmons and Gurrola 2000; Gravitz 2014).

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

Two authors: (Simmons and Gurrola 2000)
Three or more authors: (Endres et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Ecological Processes
Abbreviation	Ecol. Process.
ISSN (online)	2192-1709
Scope