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:

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
McNally, R.J., 2006, Psychology. Psychiatric casualties of war: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 313, p. 923–924.
A journal article with 2 authors
Reznick, D.N., and Ricklefs, R.E., 2009, Darwin’s bridge between microevolution and macroevolution: Nature, v. 457, p. 837–842.
A journal article with 3 authors
Davis, S.P., Finarelli, J.A., and Coates, M.I., 2012, Acanthodes and shark-like conditions in the last common ancestor of modern gnathostomes: Nature, v. 486, p. 247–250.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
Wright, D.E., Wagers, A.J., Gulati, A.P., Johnson, F.L., and Weissman, I.L., 2001, Physiological migration of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 294, p. 1933–1936.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Lev, B., and Gu, F., 2016, The End of Accounting and the Path Forward for Investors and Managers: Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Ramos, A. (Ed.), 2011, Electrokinetics and Electrohydrodynamics in Microsystems: Vienna, Springer, CISM Courses and Lectures, v. 530, VIII, 300 p p.
A chapter in an edited book
Genovese, E., Leonardi, A., Callegari, L., Angeretti, M.G., Albrizio, M., Spanò, E., and Fugazzola, C., 2011, Major and Minor Pediatric Traumatic Musculotendinous Injuries, in Martino, F., Defilippi, C., and Caudana, R. eds., Imaging of Pediatric Bone and Joint Trauma, Milano, Springer, p. 69–81.

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, D., 2016, Are Aliens Trying To Tell Us Something? Brightest Burst Of Radio Waves Detected: 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, 2000, Education for Disadvantaged Children: Research Purpose and Design Features Affect Conclusions Drawn From Key Studies: U.S. Government Printing Office HEHS-00-168.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Bacus, M., 2015, Disturb the Morning [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
Crow, K., 2001, Writers Are Halted Mid-Sentence as a Y Cancels Classes: New York Times, p. 147.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (McNally, 2006).
This sentence cites two references (McNally, 2006; Reznick and Ricklefs, 2009).

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

  • Two authors: (Reznick and Ricklefs, 2009)
  • Three or more authors: (Wright et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal titleGSA Today
AbbreviationGSA Today
ISSN (print)1052-5173
ScopeGeology

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