How to format your references using the Elementa citation style

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

Ray LB. 2008. Cell signaling. Getting your loops straight. Introduction. Science 322(5900): 389.

A journal article with 2 authors

Carrete M, Tella JL. 2013. High individual consistency in fear of humans throughout the adult lifespan of rural and urban burrowing owls. Sci Rep 3: 3524.

A journal article with 3 authors

Rubenstein M, Cornejo A, Nagpal R. 2014. Robotics. Programmable self-assembly in a thousand-robot swarm. Science 345(6198): 795–799.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Gamezo VN, Khokhlov AM, Oran ES, Chtchelkanova AY, Rosenberg RO. 2003. Thermonuclear supernovae: simulations of the deflagration stage and their implications. Science 299(5603): 77–81.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hagen J. 2005. Industrial Catalysis. Weinheim, FRG: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Spink A, Cole C, editors. 2005. New Directions in Cognitive Information Retrieval. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. (The Information Retrieval Series; Vol. 19).

A chapter in an edited book

Dall BE, Smith AG. 2015. Pathology of the Sacroiliac Joint Leading to Surgery. In: Dall BE, Eden SV, Rahl MD, editors. Surgery for the Painful, Dysfunctional Sacroiliac Joint: A Clinical Guide. Cham: Springer International Publishing. p. 45–55.

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 Elementa.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2014 Oct 24. Scientists Print Ebola Test Onto Tiny Bits Of Paper. IFLScience. IFLScience. Available at https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/scientists-print-ebola-test-tiny-bits-paper/. Accessed 2018 Oct 30.

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. 2005. Transportation Security Administration: More Clarity on the Authority of Federal Security Directors Is Needed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Report No.: GAO-05-935.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Montano M. 2010. Supporting juvenile offenders reentering the community: A grant proposal project [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach.

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

Goldstein J. 2017 May 26. Asked to Reduce Prison Rape, Then Accused of Sexual Abuse. New York Times: A22.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ray, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Ray, 2008; Carrete and Tella, 2013).

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

Two authors: (Carrete and Tella, 2013)
Three or more authors: (Gamezo et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Elementa
Abbreviation	Elementa (Wash., DC)
ISSN (online)	2325-1026
Scope	Atmospheric Science Geology Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology Oceanography Ecology Environmental Engineering