How to format your references using the GSA Today citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for GSA Today. 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

Marcus, G.F., 2004, Before the word: Nature, v. 431, p. 745.

A journal article with 2 authors

Wollert, T., and Hurley, J.H., 2010, Molecular mechanism of multivesicular body biogenesis by ESCRT complexes: Nature, v. 464, p. 864–869.

A journal article with 3 authors

Muchnik, L., Aral, S., and Taylor, S.J., 2013, Social influence bias: a randomized experiment: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 341, p. 647–651.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Steel, G.J., Fullerton, D.M., Tyson, J.R., and Stirling, C.J., 2004, Coordinated activation of Hsp70 chaperones: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 303, p. 98–101.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Schumann, W., 2006, Dynamics of the Bacterial Chromosome: Weinheim, FRG, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

Hagen, S.J. (Ed.), 2015, The Physical Basis of Bacterial Quorum Communication: New York, NY, Springer, Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering, IX, 252 p. 75 illus., 47 illus. in color p.

A chapter in an edited book

Connor, M.J., and Oommen, A., 2015, Clinical Pearls: Non-dialytic Management of Kidney Complications in the Postoperative Period, in Thakar, C.V. and Parikh, C.R. eds., Perioperative Kidney Injury: Principles of Risk Assessment, Diagnosis and Treatment, New York, NY, Springer, p. 53–65.

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 GSA Today.

Blog post

Andrew, E., 2015, Prominent Astronomy Professor Accused Of Repeatedly Sexually Harassing Students: IFLScience, https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/astronomy-professor-accused-sexual-harrassment/ (accessed 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, 1988, Bridge Safety: Structural Soundness of the Zilwaukee Bridge: U.S. Government Printing Office RCED-88-96.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Eldridge, R.L., 2012, A Comparative Quantitative Study of Private College Audit Fee Behavior in a Highly Regulated Environment [Doctoral dissertation]: Northcentral 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

Walsh, M.W., 2016, Puerto Rico Asks Congress for Law to Allow It to Restructure $49 Billion in Debt: New York Times, p. B3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Marcus, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Marcus, 2004; Wollert and Hurley, 2010).

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

Two authors: (Wollert and Hurley, 2010)
Three or more authors: (Steel et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	GSA Today
Abbreviation	GSA Today
ISSN (print)	1052-5173
Scope	Geology