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

Yutzey KE (2015) Regenerative biology: Neuregulin 1 makes heart muscle. Nature 520:445–446

A journal article with 2 authors

Lerman J, Palsson BO (2010) Microbiology. Topping off a multiscale balancing act. Science 330:1058–1059

A journal article with 3 authors

Turner WR, Oppenheimer M, Wilcove DS (2009) A force to fight global warming. Nature 462:278–279

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Lifshitz Y, Köhler T, Frauenheim T, et al (2002) The mechanism of diamond nucleation from energetic species. Science 297:1531–1533

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bonk CJ (2011) The World is Open. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, USA

An edited book

Geru I (2013) Resonance Effects of Excitons and Electrons: Basics and Applications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Hayman C (2014) Maximizing the Potential of Locally Led Peacebuilding in Conflict Affected States. In: Hellmüller S, Santschi M (eds) Is Local Beautiful?: Peacebuilding between International Interventions and Locally Led Initiatives. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 65–77

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

O`Callaghan J (2016) Hyperloop One Performs First Test Of Groundbreaking Technology. 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 (2007) Railroad Bridges and Tunnels: Federal Role in Providing Safety Oversight and Freight Infrastructure Investment Could Be Better Targeted. 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

Reitz MA (2016) Nonlinear Robust Control of Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors With Applications to Hybrid Electric Vehicles. Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois 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

Saslow L (2006) One Pilgrim and His Very Personal Hymnal. New York Times 14LI10

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Yutzey 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Lerman and Palsson 2010; Yutzey 2015).

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

Two authors: (Lerman and Palsson 2010)
Three or more authors: (Lifshitz et al. 2002)

About the journal

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

Research and Writing Guides