How to format your references using the Evolutionary Biology citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
McDonald, R. A. (2014). Animal health: How to control bovine tuberculosis. Nature, 511(7508), 158–159.
A journal article with 2 authors
Rawlins, D., & Pickering, K. (2001). Ancient chronology. Astronomical orientation of the pyramids. Nature, 412(6848), 699–700.
A journal article with 3 authors
Ford, E. B., Lystad, V., & Rasio, F. A. (2005). Planet-planet scattering in the upsilon Andromedae system. Nature, 434(7035), 873–876.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Martin, R. E., Marchetti, R. V., Cowan, A. I., Howitt, S. M., Bröer, S., & Kirk, K. (2009). Chloroquine transport via the malaria parasite’s chloroquine resistance transporter. Science (New York, N.Y.), 325(5948), 1680–1682.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Waigh, T. A. (2014). The Physics of Living Processes. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Hell, J. W., & Ehlers, M. D. (Eds.). (2008). Structural And Functional Organization Of The Synapse. Boston, MA: Springer US.
A chapter in an edited book
Naterer, G. F., Dincer, I., & Zamfirescu, C. (2013). Thermochemical Water-Splitting Cycles. In I. Dincer & C. Zamfirescu (Eds.), Hydrogen Production from Nuclear Energy (pp. 153–272). London: Springer.

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 Evolutionary Biology.

Blog post
Andrew, E. (2015, April 10). Not all GMO Plants Are Created Equally: It’s The Trait, Not The Method, That’s Important. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/not-all-gmo-plants-are-created-equally-its-trait-not-method-thats-important/. Accessed 30 October 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). Financial Management: Federal Aviation Administration Lacked Accountability for Major Assets (No. AIMD-98-62). 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
Thompson, T. (2010). Assessing the determinants of information technology adoption in Jamaica’s public sector using the technology acceptance model (Doctoral dissertation). Northcentral University, Scottsdale, AZ.

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
Neuman, W. (2014, April 24). Colombia’s President Reinstates a Mayor He Ousted. New York Times, p. A10.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (McDonald 2014).
This sentence cites two references (McDonald 2014; Rawlins and Pickering 2001).

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

  • Two authors: (Rawlins and Pickering 2001)
  • Three or more authors: (Martin et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal titleEvolutionary Biology
AbbreviationEvol. Biol.
ISSN (print)0071-3260
ISSN (online)1934-2845
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

Other styles