How to format your references using the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
Siegel, J. M. 2012. Evolution. Suppression of sleep for mating. Science (New York, N.Y.), 337, 1610–1611.
A journal article with 2 authors
Paerl, H. W. & Otten, T. G. 2013. Environmental science. Blooms bite the hand that feeds them. Science (New York, N.Y.), 342, 433–434.
A journal article with 3 authors
Oh, J. S., Susor, A. & Conti, M. 2011. Protein tyrosine kinase Wee1B is essential for metaphase II exit in mouse oocytes. Science (New York, N.Y.), 332, 462–465.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Forouhar, A. S., Liebling, M., Hickerson, A., Nasiraei-Moghaddam, A., Tsai, H.-J., Hove, J. R., Fraser, S. E., Dickinson, M. E. & Gharib, M. 2006. The embryonic vertebrate heart tube is a dynamic suction pump. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312, 751–753.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Alberts, B., Johnson, A., Lewis, J., Morgan, D., Raff, M., Roberts, K. & Walter, P. 2017. Molekularbiologie Der Zelle. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany pp.
An edited book
Lewis, M. A. 2016. The Mathematics Behind Biological Invasions. Petrovskii, S. V. & Potts, J. R. (eds). Springer International Publishing, Cham, Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics, XVI, 362 p. 106 illus., 19 illus. in color pp.
A chapter in an edited book
Siqueira, A. C. de. 2012. The 2020 World Bank Education Strategy. In: Klees, S. J., Samoff, J. & Stromquist, N. P. (eds) The World Bank and Education: Critiques and Alternatives. SensePublishers, Rotterdam, 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 Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

Blog post
Andrews, R. 2016. Zika Infections During Rio 2016 Olympic Games Could Create A ‘Full-Blown Global Health Disaster’. IFLScience. World Wide Web Address: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/zika-infections-during-rio-2016-olympic-games-could-create-full-blown-global/.

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. 1998. School Technology: Five School Districts’ Experiences in Funding Technology Programs. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, HEHS-98-35 pp.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Ratzlaff, K. 2012. Dynamics of Chytrid Fungus (Batrachochytrium Dendrobatidis) Infection in Amphibians in the Rincon Mountains and Tucson, Arizona. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona.

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. 2013. MetLife Will Repatriate an Offshore Reinsurance Unit to Mollify Regulators. New York Times, B4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Siegel 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Siegel 2012; Paerl & Otten 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Paerl & Otten 2013)
  • Three or more authors: (Forouhar et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of Systematic Palaeontology
AbbreviationJ. Syst. Palaeontol.
ISSN (print)1477-2019
ISSN (online)1478-0941
ScopePalaeontology

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