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

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

Matyjaszewski K 2011 Chemistry. Architecturally complex polymers with controlled heterogeneity Science 333 1104–5

A journal article with 2 authors

Brown J W and Braver T S 2005 Learned predictions of error likelihood in the anterior cingulate cortex Science 307 1118–21

A journal article with 3 authors

Tregenza T, Butlin R K and Wedell N 2000 Sexual conflict and speciation Nature 407 149–50

A journal article with 99 or more authors

Gänsicke B T, Koester D, Girven J, Marsh T R and Steeghs D 2010 Two white dwarfs with oxygen-rich atmospheres Science 327 188–90

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Reschetilowski W 2002 Technisch-Chemisches Praktikum (D-69451 Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH)

An edited book

Goodall J R, Conti G and Ma K-L 2008 Visualization for Computer Security: 5th International Workshop, VizSec 2008, Cambridge, MA, USA, September 15, 2008. Proceedings vol 5210 (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer)

A chapter in an edited book

D’Elia A, Viola F, Roffia L and Cinotti T S 2015 A Multi-Broker Platform for the Internet of Things Internet of Things, Smart Spaces, and Next Generation Networks and Systems: 15th International Conference, NEW2AN 2015, and 8th Conference, ruSMART 2015, St. Petersburg, Russia, August 26-28, 2015, Proceedings Lecture Notes in Computer Science ed S Balandin, S Andreev and Y Koucheryavy (Cham: Springer International Publishing) pp 34–46

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 Research Letters.

Blog post

Andrew E 2014 Over 50 Geoglyphs Discovered In Kazakhstan IFLScience Online: https://www.iflscience.com/environment/over-50-geoglyphs-discovered-kazakhstan/

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 1996 Energy Research: Opportunities Exist to Recover Federal Investment in Technology Development Projects (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Hrivnak G A 2009 Extending a model of leader -member exchange development: Individual and dyadic effects of personality, similarity and liking Doctoral dissertation (Washington, DC: George Washington 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

Vecsey G 2011 Summoning Another Storm New York Times D8

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Matyjaszewski 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Matyjaszewski 2011, Brown and Braver 2005).

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

Two authors: (Brown and Braver 2005)
Three or more authors: (Gänsicke et al 2010)

About the journal

Full journal title	Environmental Research Letters
Abbreviation	Environ. Res. Lett.
ISSN (online)	1748-9326
Scope	Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment General Environmental Science Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health