How to format your references using the Environmental Chemistry Letters citation style

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

Wadsworth P (2003) Cell biology. Persistence pays. Science 300:1675–1677

A journal article with 2 authors

Jia T, Pósfai M (2014) Connecting core percolation and controllability of complex networks. Sci Rep 4:5379

A journal article with 3 authors

Yoo AS, Bais C, Greenwald I (2004) Crosstalk between the EGFR and LIN-12/Notch pathways in C. elegans vulval development. Science 303:663–666

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Yin J, Gao F, Wei C, Lu Q (2014) Water amount dependence on morphologies and properties of ZnO nanostructures in double-solvent system. Sci Rep 4:3736

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Gostick A, Elton C (2006) Führen mit Möhren. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, FRG

An edited book

Pelcat M (2013) Physical Layer Multi-Core Prototyping: A Dataflow-Based Approach for LTE eNodeB. Springer, London

A chapter in an edited book

Engquist B (2005) Multi-scale Modeling. In: Benedicks M, Jones PW, Smirnov S, Winckler B (eds) Perspectives in Analysis: Essays in Honor of Lennart Carleson’s 75th Birthday. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 51–61

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 Environmental Chemistry Letters.

Blog post

Hale T (2016) Footage Of This Huge Bipedal Animal Is Freaking People Out. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/footage-lumbering-bipedal-animal-freaking-out-people-new-jersey/. 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 (2005) Progress of the DD(X) Destroyer Program. 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

Kim H (2008) Linkages Between Career Development and Career Technical Education Outcomes Among High Schools in New Jersey. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State 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

Gordon M (2015) Many Splendored Things. New York Times BR10

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Wadsworth 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Wadsworth 2003; Jia and Pósfai 2014).

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

Two authors: (Jia and Pósfai 2014)
Three or more authors: (Yin et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Environmental Chemistry Letters
Abbreviation	Environ. Chem. Lett.
ISSN (print)	1610-3653
ISSN (online)	1610-3661
Scope	Environmental Chemistry