How to format your references using the Geoscience Frontiers citation style

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

Kelly, R.L., 2011. Retrospective. Lewis R. Binford (1931-2011). Science 332, 928.

A journal article with 2 authors

Weatherhead, E.C., Andersen, S.B., 2006. The search for signs of recovery of the ozone layer. Nature 441, 39–45.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sakuragi, S., Tominaga-Yoshino, K., Ogura, A., 2013. Involvement of TrkB- and p75(NTR)-signaling pathways in two contrasting forms of long-lasting synaptic plasticity. Sci. Rep. 3, 3185.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Pillow, J.W., Shlens, J., Paninski, L., Sher, A., Litke, A.M., Chichilnisky, E.J., Simoncelli, E.P., 2008. Spatio-temporal correlations and visual signalling in a complete neuronal population. Nature 454, 995–999.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Waye, J.D., Aisenberg, J., Rubin, P.H., 2013. Practical Colonoscopy. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford, UK.

An edited book

Fitzgibbon, W., Kuznetsov, Y.A., Neittaanmäki, P., Périaux, J., Pironneau, O. (Eds.), 2010. Applied and Numerical Partial Differential Equations: Scientific Computing in Simulation, Optimization and Control in a Multidisciplinary Context, Computational Methods in Applied Sciences. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

A chapter in an edited book

Stankiewicz, J.M., Buckle, G.J., 2011. MS: Clinical Features, Symptom Management, and Diagnosis, in: Rizvi, S.A., Coyle, P.K. (Eds.), Clinical Neuroimmunology: Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, pp. 89–110.

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 Geoscience Frontiers.

Blog post

Fang, J., 2015. Scarlet Macaw Fossils Reveal When Complex Societies Formed in the American Southwest [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scarlet-macaw-fossils-reveal-when-complex-societies-formed-american-southwest/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2014. Federal Vehicle Collisions and Aftermarket Collision Avoidance Technologies (No. GAO-14-408R). 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

Walsh, P.L., 2012. Advancing Electroanalytical Methods for Monitoring Chemical Messenger Release (Doctoral dissertation). University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.

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

Pilon, M., 2012. Texas Association Criticized for Ruling on Jewish Team. New York Times B16.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Kelly, 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Kelly, 2011; Weatherhead and Andersen, 2006).

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

Two authors: (Weatherhead and Andersen, 2006)
Three or more authors: (Pillow et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Geoscience Frontiers
ISSN (print)	1674-9871
Scope