How to format your references using the Journal of Paleontology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Paleontology. 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

Smaglik, P., 2002, Small world, big opportunities: Nature, v. 418, p. 4–6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Balafoutas, L., and Sutter, M., 2012, Affirmative action policies promote women and do not harm efficiency in the laboratory: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 335, p. 579–582.

A journal article with 3 authors

Semenov, V., Dyadechkin, S., and Punsly, B., 2004, Simulations of jets driven by black hole rotation: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 305, p. 978–980.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Najiminaini, M., Kaminska, B., St Lawrence, K., and Carson, J.J.L., 2014, Bolus tracking with nanofilter-based multispectral videography for capturing microvasculature hemodynamics: Scientific Reports, v. 4, p. 4737.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Chase, C.W., 2016, Next Generation Demand Management: Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., .

An edited book

2005, Prions: Food and Drug Safety (Kitamoto, T., ed.): Tokyo, Springer, XVI, 272 p p.

A chapter in an edited book

Weber, S., Nowak, S., and Schappacher, F., 2014, Analytical Methods for Investigation of Lithium-Ion Battery Ageing, in Thaler, A. and Watzenig, D., eds., Automotive Battery Technology, SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology: Cham, Springer International Publishing, p. 71–87.

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 Paleontology.

Blog post

Andrew, E., 2014, Earliest Known Case of Down’s Syndrome Discovered. IFLScience. Available at https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/earliest-known-case-downs-syndrome-discovered/. Accessed October 30, 2018 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, 1994, [Comments on FAA Employee’s Claim for Backpay]: 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

Murillo, K., 2010, An analysis of California community college budget policy key components in multicollege districts [Doctoral dissertation]: Malibu, CA, Pepperdine 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, Treasury Official Urges Congress to Act Quickly on Puerto Rico: 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 (Smaglik, 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Smaglik, 2002; Balafoutas and Sutter, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Balafoutas and Sutter, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Najiminaini et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Paleontology
Abbreviation	J. Paleontol.
ISSN (print)	0022-3360
ISSN (online)	1937-2337
Scope	Palaeontology