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
May, M. (2013). Regenerative medicine: Rebuilding the backbone. Nature, 503(7475), S7-9.
A journal article with 2 authors
Salazar-Ciudad, I., & Marín-Riera, M. (2013). Adaptive dynamics under development-based genotype-phenotype maps. Nature, 497(7449), 361–364.
A journal article with 3 authors
Song, J., Ji, C., & Zhang, J. Z. H. (2013). Unveiling the gating mechanism of ECF transporter RibU. Scientific Reports, 3, 3566.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Strand, A. E., Pritchard, S. G., McCormack, M. L., Davis, M. A., & Oren, R. (2008). Irreconcilable differences: fine-root life spans and soil carbon persistence. Science (New York, N.Y.), 319(5862), 456–458.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Sokhanvar, S., Dargahi, J., Najarian, S., & Arbatani, S. (2012). Tactile Sensing and Displays. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Couture, A. (2008). Gastrointestinal Tract Sonography in Fetuses and Children (C. Baud, J. L. Ferran, M. Saguintaah, & C. Veyrac, Eds.). Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Schmidt, R. (2010). Perspectives for Moving Business Processes into the Cloud. In I. Bider, T. Halpin, J. Krogstie, S. Nurcan, E. Proper, R. Schmidt, & R. Ukor (Eds.), Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling: 11th International Workshop, BPMDS 2010, and 15th International Conference, EMMSAD 2010, held at CAiSE 2010, Hammamet, Tunisia, June 7-8, 2010. Proceedings (pp. 49–61). 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. (2015, August 9). Should British Universities Worry About A Lack Of Nobel Prizes In The 21st Century? IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/should-british-universities-worry-about-lack-nobel-prizes-21st-century/

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. (1976). Bilingual Education: An Unmet Need (MWD-76-25). 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
Hill, J. A. (2012). Classical three-body systems and the Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser theorem [Doctoral dissertation]. California State University, Long Beach.

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
Cooper, M. (2017, May 4). A Cutting-Edge Impresario’s Legacy. New York Times, C4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (May, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (May, 2013; Salazar-Ciudad & Marín-Riera, 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Salazar-Ciudad & Marín-Riera, 2013)
  • Three authors: (Song et al., 2013)
  • 6 or more authors: (Strand 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