How to format your references using the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Soil and Water Conservation (JSWC). 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

Marx, V. 2013. Neurobiology: Brain mapping in high resolution. Nature 503(7474):147–152.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ito, T., and S. Okazaki. 2000. Pushing the limits of lithography. Nature 406(6799):1027–1031.

A journal article with 3 authors

Johnson, S. C., P. S. Rabinovitch, and M. Kaeberlein. 2013. mTOR is a key modulator of ageing and age-related disease. Nature 493(7432):338–345.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Bhargava, V., S. R. Head, P. Ordoukhanian, M. Mercola, and S. Subramaniam. 2014. Technical variations in low-input RNA-seq methodologies. Scientific reports 4 (January 14, 2014):3678.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bajorski, P. 2011. Statistics for Imaging, Optics, and Photonics: Bajorski/Statistics for Imaging. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Nishii, R., S.-I. Ei, M. Koiso, H. Ochiai, K. Okada, S. Saito, and T. Shirai, eds. 2014. A Mathematical Approach to Research Problems of Science and Technology: Theoretical Basis and Developments in Mathematical Modeling. Tokyo: Springer Japan.

A chapter in an edited book

Dündar, G., and A. Unutulmaz. 2011. Routing Analog Circuits. In Analog Layout Synthesis: A Survey of Topological Approaches, ed. H. E. Graeb, 149–201. Boston, MA: Springer US.

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 Soil and Water Conservation.

Blog post

Hale, T. 2016, May 10. Parents Are Freaking Out Because They Can’t Answer A 7-Year-Old Kid’s Exam Question. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/7-year-old-kids-homework-confusing-adults-internet/.

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. 1997. Distance Learning: Opportunities Exist for DOD to Capitalize on Services’ Efforts. 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

Horning, C. L. 2017. Kinesthetic learning in algebra and its effects on students’ achievement and disposition toward mathemathics. Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach.

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. 2000, September 5. Woodstock on the Volga: Protest Ages Into Singalong. New York Times (September 5, 2000):E2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Marx 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Ito and Okazaki 2000, Marx 2013).

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

Two authors: (Ito and Okazaki 2000)
Three or more authors: (Bhargava et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Soil and Water Conservation
Abbreviation	J. Soil Water Conserv.
ISSN (print)	0022-4561
ISSN (online)	1941-3300
Scope	Agronomy and Crop Science Soil Science Nature and Landscape Conservation Water Science and Technology