How to format your references using the Functional Ecology citation style

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

Spitzer, N. C. (2006). Electrical activity in early neuronal development. Nature, 444(7120), 707–712.

A journal article with 2 authors

Long, M. D., & Silver, P. G. (2008). The subduction zone flow field from seismic anisotropy: a global view. Science (New York, N.Y.), 319(5861), 315–318.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bewley, G. P., Lathrop, D. P., & Sreenivasan, K. R. (2006). Superfluid helium: visualization of quantized vortices. Nature, 441(7093), 588.

A journal article with 21 or more authors

Gurtner, G. C., Werner, S., Barrandon, Y., & Longaker, M. T. (2008). Wound repair and regeneration. Nature, 453(7193), 314–321.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cremona, C. (2013). Structural Performance. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Tkacz, E., & Kapczynski, A. (Eds.). (2009). Internet – Technical Development and Applications (Vol. 64). Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Bogon, T., Endres, M., & Timm, I. J. (2012). Gaining a Better Quality Depending on More Exploration in PSO. In I. J. Timm & C. Guttmann (Eds.), Multiagent System Technologies: 10th German Conference, MATES 2012, Trier, Germany, October 10-12, 2012. Proceedings (pp. 30–39). 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 Functional Ecology.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J. (2017, May 31). NASA’s Mission To Touch The Sun Is Now Called The Parker Space Probe. IFLScience; IFLScience.

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. (1981). Alternatives for Funding a GI Bill (FPCD-81-45). 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

Webster, W. P. (2014). The Influence of Philanthropy and Administrative Decision-making Models on a Liberal Arts College’s Strategic Planning Process: A Case Study [Doctoral dissertation]. 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

McKINLEY, J., & Mueller, B. (2015, June 10). 2 Escapees Still at Large Despite 450-Officer Hunt in Remote, Swampy Area. New York Times, A20.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Spitzer, 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Long & Silver, 2008; Spitzer, 2006).

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

Two authors: (Long & Silver, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Gurtner et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Functional Ecology
Abbreviation	Funct. Ecol.
ISSN (print)	0269-8463
ISSN (online)	1365-2435
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics