How to format your references using the Geoscience Letters citation style

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

Schmitz OJ (2008) Effects of predator hunting mode on grassland ecosystem function. Science 319:952–954

A journal article with 2 authors

West PM, Packer C (2002) Sexual selection, temperature, and the lion’s mane. Science 297:1339–1343

A journal article with 3 authors

Jacobs SS, Giulivi CF, Mele PA (2002) Freshening of the Ross Sea during the late 20th century. Science 297:386–389

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Ravasio D, Walther A, Trost K, et al (2014) An indirect assay for volatile compound production in yeast strains. Sci Rep 4:3707

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Shinohara H, Tagmatarchis N (2015) Endohedral Metallofullerenes. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

François D (2012) Mechanical Behaviour of Materials: Volume 1: Micro- and Macroscopic Constitutive Behaviour. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

A chapter in an edited book

Brinkworth JF, Sterner KN (2013) Toll-Like Receptor Function and Evolution in Primates. In: Brinkworth JF, Pechenkina K (eds) Primates, Pathogens, and Evolution. Springer, New York, NY, pp 91–116

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 Letters.

Blog post

Luntz S (2014) Hikers Caught In Volcanic Eruption Capture Moment On Camera. In: IFLScience. 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 (1988) Telecommunications: Changes in Selected Broadcast and Cable Television Reporting Requirements. 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

Gowetski DB (2012) Manipulation of DNA topology using an artificial DNA-looping protein. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park

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

Gustines GG (2016) A Comics Confab That Never Ends. New York Times F30

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Schmitz 2008).
This sentence cites two references (West and Packer 2002; Schmitz 2008).

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

Two authors: (West and Packer 2002)
Three or more authors: (Ravasio et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Geoscience Letters
Abbreviation	Geosci. Lett.
ISSN (online)	2196-4092
Scope

Research and Writing Guides