How to format your references using the Geo-Marine Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Geo-Marine 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	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

Watson M (2015) Test the effects of ash on jet engines. Nature 520:133

A journal article with 2 authors

Massol F, Crochet P-A (2008) Do animal personalities emerge? Nature 451:E8-9; discussion E9-10

A journal article with 3 authors

Kent A, Massar S, Silman J (2014) Secure and robust transmission and verification of unknown quantum states in Minkowski space. Sci Rep 4:3901

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Bornemann A, Norris RD, Friedrich O, et al (2008) Isotopic evidence for glaciation during the Cretaceous supergreenhouse. Science 319:189–192

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lacalle D, Parrilla D (2015) The Energy World is Flat. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Sibilia C, Benson TM, Marciniak M, Szoplik T (eds) (2008) Photonic Crystals: Physics and Technology. Springer, Milano

A chapter in an edited book

Lutter S, Makinen T (2014) Regulation of Lymphatic Vasculature by Extracellular Matrix. In: Kiefer F, Schulte-Merker S (eds) Developmental Aspects of the Lymphatic Vascular System. Springer, Vienna, pp 55–65

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 Geo-Marine Letters.

Blog post

Andrew E (2014) Researchers Identify New Possible Supernova Trigger. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/researchers-identify-new-possible-supernova-trigger/. 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 (1997) Higher Education: Verification Helps Prevent Student Aid Payments to Ineligible Noncitizens. 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

Murdock JM (2017) Lethe and the Twin Bodhisattvas of Forgiveness and Forgetfulness. Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute

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

Saslow L (2009) Supervisor for the Short Term in Brookhaven. New York Times LI2

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Watson 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Massol and Crochet 2008; Watson 2015).

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

Two authors: (Massol and Crochet 2008)
Three or more authors: (Bornemann et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Geo-Marine Letters
Abbreviation	Geo-Mar. Lett.
ISSN (print)	0276-0460
ISSN (online)	1432-1157
Scope	Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology Oceanography Environmental Science (miscellaneous)