How to format your references using the Geobiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Geobiology. 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
Smaglik P (2004) Planning ahead. Nature 432, 1063.
A journal article with 2 authors
Frank T, Friedrich RW (2015) Neurobiology: Individuality sniffed out in flies. Nature 526, 200–201.
A journal article with 3 authors
Toyoshima C, Nomura H, Tsuda T (2004) Lumenal gating mechanism revealed in calcium pump crystal structures with phosphate analogues. Nature 432, 361–368.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Barnes JW, Tischkau SA, Barnes JA, Mitchell JW, Burgoon PW, Hickok JR, Gillette MU (2003) Requirement of mammalian Timeless for circadian rhythmicity. Science (New York, N.Y.) 302, 439–442.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Simmendinger H (2013) HOAI 2013: Praxisleitfaden für Ingenieure und Architekten. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69451 Weinheim, Germany.
An edited book
Khurshid S, Sen K (eds.) (2012) Runtime Verification: Second International Conference, RV 2011, San Francisco, CA, USA, September 27-30, 2011, Revised Selected Papers. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
A chapter in an edited book
Liu C, Gong Z (2014) Elements of Optimal Control Theory. In: Optimal Control of Switched Systems Arising in Fermentation Processes, Springer Optimization and Its Applications (ed. Gong Z). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 41–57.

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 Geobiology.

Blog post
Davis J (2016) Norway Is The First Country To Commit To Zero Deforestation. 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 (2005) Business Systems Modernization: Internal Revenue Service’s Fiscal Year 2005 Expenditure Plan ( No. GAO-05-774). 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
Ruiz-Resto JV (2016) The Effects of Technical and Imagery-based Instruction on Aspiring Performing Artists’ Acquisition of Learning Newly Composed Pieces and Improvisation and on Listeners’ Perceived Expressivity (Doctoral dissertation).

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
Kelly M (1992) THE TRANSITION: Political Memo; Clinton, After Raising Hopes, Tries to Lower Expectations. New York Times A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Smaglik, 2004; Frank & Friedrich, 2015).

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

  • Two authors: (Frank & Friedrich, 2015)
  • Three or more authors: (Barnes et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal titleGeobiology
AbbreviationGeobiology
ISSN (print)1472-4677
ISSN (online)1472-4669
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
General Earth and Planetary Sciences
General Environmental Science

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