How to format your references using the Global Change Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Global Change Biology (GCB). 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
Boyle, J. (2013). Biology must develop its own big-data systems. Nature, 499(7456), 7.
A journal article with 2 authors
Summers, M. F., & Hrabowski, F. A., 3rd. (2006). Diversity. Preparing minority scientists and engineers. Science (New York, N.Y.), 311(5769), 1870–1871.
A journal article with 3 authors
Gertz, J., Siggia, E. D., & Cohen, B. A. (2009). Analysis of combinatorial cis-regulation in synthetic and genomic promoters. Nature, 457(7226), 215–218.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Hunt, D. E., David, L. A., Gevers, D., Preheim, S. P., Alm, E. J., & Polz, M. F. (2008). Resource partitioning and sympatric differentiation among closely related bacterioplankton. Science (New York, N.Y.), 320(5879), 1081–1085.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Voit, B., Haag, R., Appelhans, D., & Welzel, P. B. (2016). Bio- and Multifunctional Polymer Architectures. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Earl, L. M., & Timperley, H. (Eds.). (2009). Professional Learning Conversations: Challenges in Using Evidence for Improvement (Vol. 1). Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Sedlmair, M. (2013). Radiation Protection in CT-Guided Interventions. In A. H. Mahnken, K. E. Wilhelm, & J. Ricke (Eds.), CT- and MR-Guided Interventions in Radiology (pp. 41–50). 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 Change Biology.

Blog post
Andrew, E. (2016, April 26). Your Devices’ Latest Feature? They Can Spy On Your Every Move. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/your-devices-latest-feature-they-can-spy-your-every-move/

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. (2017). Data Center Optimization: Agencies Need to Complete Plans to Address Inconsistencies in Reported Savings (GAO-17-388). 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
Paik, Y. (2012). Redefining multidisciplinary teams: An institutional approach [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
Hodgman, J. (2017, January 20). Bonus Advice From Judge John Hodgman. New York Times, MM22.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Boyle, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Boyle, 2013; Summers & Hrabowski, 2006).

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

  • Two authors: (Summers & Hrabowski, 2006)
  • Three authors: (Gertz et al., 2009)
  • 6 or more authors: (Hunt et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleGlobal Change Biology
AbbreviationGlob. Chang. Biol.
ISSN (print)1354-1013
ISSN (online)1365-2486
ScopeGeneral Environmental Science
Ecology
Environmental Chemistry
Global and Planetary Change

Other styles