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

Ackland, G.J., 2015, MATERIALS SCIENCE. Bearing down on hydrogen: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 348, p. 1429–1430.

A journal article with 2 authors

Short, J., and Murray, S., 2011, A frozen hell: Nature, v. 472, p. 162–163.

A journal article with 3 authors

Schieber, J., Krinsley, D., and Riciputi, L., 2000, Diagenetic origin of quartz silt in mudstones and implications for silica cycling: Nature, v. 406, p. 981–985.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Pushp, A., Parker, C.V., Pasupathy, A.N., Gomes, K.K., Ono, S., Wen, J., Xu, Z., Gu, G., and Yazdani, A., 2009, Extending universal nodal excitations optimizes superconductivity in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+delta: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 324, p. 1689–1693.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Weinberg, M.A., Segelnick, S.L., Insler, J.S., and Kramer, S., 2015, The Dentist’s Quick Guide to Medical Conditions: Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Baleanu, D., Guvenc, Z.B., and Machado, J.A.T. (Eds.), 2010, New Trends in Nanotechnology and Fractional Calculus Applications: Dordrecht, Springer Netherlands, XI, 531 p p.

A chapter in an edited book

Hall, K.S.K., 2016, Multicultural Sensitivity in the Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction, in Lipshultz, L.I., Pastuszak, A.W., Goldstein, A.T., Giraldi, A., and Perelman, M.A. eds., Management of Sexual Dysfunction in Men and Women: An Interdisciplinary Approach, New York, NY, Springer, p. 25–29.

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

Luntz, S., 2016, “Lucy’s” Bones Indicate Part-Time Life In The Trees: IFLScience, https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/lucys-bones-indicate-parttime-life-in-the-trees/ (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, Tactical Airlift: Observations Concerning the Air Force’s C-27 Proposal: U.S. Government Printing Office NSIAD-88-124.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Howard, G.M., 2012, Roles of vitamin D and calcium in cancer and diet history [Doctoral dissertation]: Mississippi State 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

Gorman, J., 2016, For Dogs, It’s What You Say and Also How You Say It: New York Times, p. A14.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ackland, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Short and Murray, 2011; Ackland, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Short and Murray, 2011)
Three or more authors: (Pushp et al., 2009)

About the journal

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