How to format your references using the Global Biogeochemical Cycles citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 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
Smith, C. (2004). Drug target identification: a question of biology. Nature, 428(6979), 225–231.
A journal article with 2 authors
Smith, G., & Smolin, J. A. (2013). An exactly solvable model for quantum communications. Nature, 504(7479), 263–267.
A journal article with 3 authors
Lavender, K. L., Davis, R. E., & Owens, W. B. (2000). Mid-depth recirculation observed in the interior Labrador and Irminger seas by direct velocity measurements. Nature, 407(6800), 66–69.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Zhang, Y., Zuo, T., Cheng, Y., & Liaw, P. K. (2013). High-entropy alloys with high saturation magnetization, electrical resistivity, and malleability. Scientific Reports, 3, 1455.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Zelterman, D. (2005). Discrete Distributions: Applications in the Health Sciences. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Parker, D. (Ed.). (2014). Bacterial Activation of Type I Interferons. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Kolaczyk, E. D., & Csárdi, G. (2014). Mathematical Models for Network Graphs. In G. Csárdi (Ed.), Statistical Analysis of Network Data with R (pp. 69–83). New York, NY: Springer.

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 Global Biogeochemical Cycles.

Blog post
O`Callaghan, J. (2015, October 14). NASA Is Looking For Your Ideas To Live Off The Land On Mars. Retrieved October 30, 2018, from

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. (1982). The Army’s Multiple Launch Rocket System Is Progressing Well and Merits Continued Support (No. MASAD-82-13). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Minger, L. (2017). Examining Education Leadership Communication Practices around Basic and Advanced Skill Sets: A Multiple Case Study (Doctoral dissertation). Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA.

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
Crow, K. (2001, December 2). Refurbishing a Courthouse, If Not Its Reputation. New York Times, p. 144.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smith, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (C. Smith, 2004; G. Smith & Smolin, 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Smith & Smolin, 2013)
  • Three or more authors: (Zhang et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleGlobal Biogeochemical Cycles
AbbreviationGlobal Biogeochem. Cycles
ISSN (print)0886-6236
ISSN (online)1944-9224
ScopeAtmospheric Science
General Environmental Science
Environmental Chemistry
Global and Planetary Change

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