How to format your references using the Journal of Natural History citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Natural History. 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	Download the output style file
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

Borrero JC. 2005. Field data and satellite imagery of tsunami effects in Banda Aceh. Science. 308:1596.

A journal article with 2 authors

Morton JJL, Mølmer K. 2015. Quantum information: Spin memories in for the long haul. Nature. 517:153–154.

A journal article with 3 authors

Blake RE, Chang SJ, Lepland A. 2010. Phosphate oxygen isotopic evidence for a temperate and biologically active Archaean ocean. Nature. 464:1029–1032.

A journal article with 12 or more authors

Ahart M, Somayazulu M, Cohen RE, Ganesh P, Dera P, Mao H-K, Hemley RJ, Ren Y, Liermann P, Wu Z. 2008. Origin of morphotropic phase boundaries in ferroelectrics. Nature. 451:545–548.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Chakrabarty P. 2012. A Guide to Academia. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

An edited book

Foulkes WD, Cooney KA, editors. 2010. Male Reproductive Cancers: Epidemiology, Pathology and Genetics. New York, NY: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

James JT. 2016. Toxicology. In: Nicogossian AE, Williams RS, Huntoon CL, Doarn CR, Polk JD, Schneider VS, editors. Space Physiology and Medicine: From Evidence to Practice. New York, NY: Springer; p. 137–153.

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 Journal of Natural History.

Blog post

Luntz S. 2015. Spiral Arms Seen Around Stars May Have Been Made By Giant Planets. IFLScience [Internet]. [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/spiral-arms-seen-around-stars-made-giant-planets/

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. 1981. Improving the Collection of Debts Owed the Government. 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

Smith JR. 2010. The evolving profile of alternative tobacco use in California [Doctoral dissertation]. La Jolla, CA: University of California San Diego.

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

Kovaleski SF, Alter A, Howard JC. 2015. Friends, Fans and Now Alabama Debate the State of Harper Lee. New York Times.:A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Borrero 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Borrero 2005; Morton and Mølmer 2015).

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

Two authors: (Morton and Mølmer 2015)
Three or more authors: (Ahart et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Natural History
Abbreviation	J. Nat. Hist.
ISSN (print)	0022-2933
ISSN (online)	1464-5262
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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