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

Murphy G (2003) Dyslexia: lost for words. Nature 425:340–342

A journal article with 2 authors

Le Goff L, Lecuit T (2009) Developmental biology. Phase transition in a cell. Science 324:1654–1655

A journal article with 3 authors

Frank F, Sonenberg N, Nagar B (2010) Structural basis for 5’-nucleotide base-specific recognition of guide RNA by human AGO2. Nature 465:818–822

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Metz M, Piliponsky AM, Chen C-C, et al (2006) Mast cells can enhance resistance to snake and honeybee venoms. Science 313:526–530

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Dacey JS, Fiore LB, Brion-Meisels S (2016) Your Child’s Social and Emotional Well-Being. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Maes F (ed) (2005) Marine Resource Damage Assessment: Liability and Compensation for Environmental Damage. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

A chapter in an edited book

Becvar A, Hollan J, Hutchins E (2008) Representational Gestures as Cognitive Artifacts for Developing Theories in a Scientific Laboratory. In: Halverson CA, Erickson T, Kellogg WA (eds) Resources, Co-Evolution and Artifacts: Theory in CSCW. Springer, London, pp 117–143

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

Andrew E (2015) Monkey Minds: What We Can Learn From Primate Personality. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/monkey-minds-what-we-can-learn-primate-personality/. 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 (2003) Information Technology: Leadership Remains Key to Agencies Making Progress on Enterprise Architecture Efforts. 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

Pesochinsky N (2019) Effect of Refractive Vision Correction of Myopia and Hyperopia Through Laser Surgery (LASIK & PRK) on Symptoms of Depression, Stress Perception and Self-esteem in Adults (22-55). Doctoral dissertation, Capella University

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

Shear MD, Yee V (2017) ‘Dreamers’ to Stay in U.S. for Now, but Their Long-Term Fate Is Unclear. New York Times A17

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Murphy 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Murphy 2003; Le Goff and Lecuit 2009).

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

Two authors: (Le Goff and Lecuit 2009)
Three or more authors: (Metz et al. 2006)

About the journal

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

Research and Writing Guides