How to format your references using the Green Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Green 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Check, Erika. 2002. “National Academies Slam Bush Proposal for Data Security.” Nature 419 (6909): 769.
A journal article with 2 authors
Anderson, Craig A., and Brad J. Bushman. 2002. “Psychology. The Effects of Media Violence on Society.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 295 (5564): 2377–2379.
A journal article with 3 authors
Vinther, Jakob, Peter Van Roy, and Derek E. G. Briggs. 2008. “Machaeridians Are Palaeozoic Armoured Annelids.” Nature 451 (7175): 185–188.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
Johnson, Robert A., Karen D. Wright, Helen Poppleton, Kumarasamypet M. Mohankumar, David Finkelstein, Stanley B. Pounds, Vikki Rand, et al. 2010. “Cross-Species Genomics Matches Driver Mutations and Cell Compartments to Model Ependymoma.” Nature 466 (7306): 632–636.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Sarker, Satyajit D., and Lutfun Nahar. 2007. Chemistry for Pharmacy Students. West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd,.
An edited book
Piccart, Martine J., Mien-Chie Hung, Lawrence J. Solin, Fatima Cardoso, and William C. Wood, eds. 2006. Breast Cancer and Molecular Medicine. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Niewiesk, S. 2009. “Current Animal Models: Cotton Rat Animal Model.” In Measles: Pathogenesis and Control, edited by Diane E. Griffin and Michael B. A. Oldstone, 89–110. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology. Berlin, Heidelberg: 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 Green Letters.

Blog post
Hamilton, Kristy. 2014. “Your Brain on Coffee.” IFLScience. IFLScience.

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. 2004. Transportation-Disadvantaged Populations: Federal Agencies Are Taking Steps to Assist States and Local Agencies in Coordinating Transportation Services. GAO-04-420R. 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
Breckenridge, Courtney. 2017. “Measuring Object and Attribute Salience in 2014 Illinois Gubernatorial Endorsements.” Doctoral dissertation, Edwardsville, IL: 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
Brantley, Ben. 2017. “Fears Both Small (Cats) and Large (Apocalypse).” New York Times, February 17.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Check 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Check 2002; Anderson and Bushman 2002).

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

  • Two authors: (Anderson and Bushman 2002)
  • Three authors: (Vinther, Van Roy, and Briggs 2008)
  • 4 or more authors: (Johnson et al. 2010)

About the journal

Full journal titleGreen Letters
ISSN (print)1468-8417
ISSN (online)2168-1414
ScopeLiterature and Literary Theory

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