How to format your references using the Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems Discussions citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems Discussions. 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

May, M.: Antibiotics, Nature, 509, S1, 2014.

A journal article with 2 authors

Dennett-Thorpe, J. and de Bruyn, A. G.: Interstellar scintillation as the origin of the rapid radio variability of the quasar J1819+3845, Nature, 415, 57–60, 2002.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hellweger, F. L., van Sebille, E., and Fredrick, N. D.: Biogeographic patterns in ocean microbes emerge in a neutral agent-based model, Science, 345, 1346–1349, 2014.

A journal article with 100 or more authors

Lee, S. J., Evers, S., Roeder, D., Parlow, A. F., Risteli, J., Risteli, L., Lee, Y. C., Feizi, T., Langen, H., and Nussenzweig, M. C.: Mannose receptor-mediated regulation of serum glycoprotein homeostasis, Science, 295, 1898–1901, 2002.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Banks, R. E., Sharp, J. M., Doss, S. D., and Vanderford, D. A.: Exotic Small Mammal Care and Husbandry, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Ames, Iowa, USA, 2016.

An edited book

Biemann, C. and Mehler, A. (Eds.): Text Mining: From Ontology Learning to Automated Text Processing Applications, Springer International Publishing, Cham, X, 238 p. 50 illus., 23 illus. in color pp., 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Stam, E., Suddle, K., Hessels, J., and Stel, A. van: High-Growth Entrepreneurs, Public Policies, and Economic Growth, in: Public Policies for Fostering Entrepreneurship: A European Perspective, edited by: Baptista, R. and Leitao, J., Springer US, New York, NY, 91–110, 2009.

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 Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems Discussions.

Blog post

Coconut Crabs Can Pinch With More Force Than Most Animals Can Bite: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/coconut-crabs-can-pinch-more-force-most-animals-can-bite/, last access: 30 October 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: Federal Aviation Administration: Challenges in Modernizing the Agency, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2000.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Joubert, B. R.: Human genetic susceptibility to mother to child transmission of HIV: A study of mother-infant pairs in Malawi, Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 2009.

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

Kishkovsky, S.: Viktor Astafyev, Who Wrote of Rural Russia, Dies at 77, New York Times, 3rd December, F6, 2001.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (May, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (May, 2014; Dennett-Thorpe and de Bruyn, 2002).

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

Two authors: (Dennett-Thorpe and de Bruyn, 2002)
Three or more authors: (Lee et al., 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems Discussions
ISSN (online)	2193-0872
Scope