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

Ledford, H., 2007, Cheap at any price? Nature, v. 447, p. 131.

A journal article with 2 authors

Berry, R.M., and Armitage, J.P., 2008, Microbiology. How bacteria change gear: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 320, p. 1599–1600.

A journal article with 3 authors

Takahashi, K., Mitsui, K., and Yamanaka, S., 2003, Role of ERas in promoting tumour-like properties in mouse embryonic stem cells: Nature, v. 423, p. 541–545.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Kirshenbaum, S.R., Mooney, C., Otto, S.L., Chapman, M., Dacey, A., Holt, R., and Krauss, L., 2008, Science and government. Science and the candidates: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 320, p. 182.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ni, Z., Pacoret, C., Benosman, R., and Régnier, S., 2014, Haptic Feedback Teleoperation of Optical Tweezers: Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Gerrath, J., 2015, Taming the Wild Grape: Botany and Horticulture in the Vitaceae (U. Posluszny & L. Melville, Eds.): Cham, Springer International Publishing, XII, 194 p. 80 illus., 73 illus. in color p.

A chapter in an edited book

Zeng, J., and Zhong, X., 2007, A Novel WiMAX Structure with Mesh Network, in Krishnaswamy, D., Pfeifer, T., and Raz, D. eds., Real-Time Mobile Multimedia Services: 10th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Management of Multimedia and Mobile Networks and Services, MMNS 2007, San José, USA, October 31 - November 2, 2007 Proceedings, Berlin, Heidelberg, Springer, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, p. 50–63.

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

Hale, T., 2016, Watch A Parachute Drop Go Wrong As Three Cars Slam Into The Ground: IFLScience, https://www.iflscience.com/physics/physics-deals-cruel-hand-us-armys-car-parachute-drop/ (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, 2017, Aviation Research and Development: FAA Could Improve How It Develops Its Portfolio and Reports Its Activities: U.S. Government Printing Office GAO-17-372.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Pease, M., 2014, Progress towards the Synthesis of a Potent, Bioavailable and Selective Dimethylarginine Dimethylaminohydrolase-1 Inactivator [Doctoral dissertation]: 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

Kishkovsky, S., 2003, EVERYWHERE, “IN HONOR OF THE 300TH”: New York Times, p. 57.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ledford, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Ledford, 2007; Berry and Armitage, 2008).

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

Two authors: (Berry and Armitage, 2008)
Three or more authors: (Kirshenbaum et al., 2008)

About the journal

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