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:

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

Jacobson, M. Z. 2013. Comment on ‘Radiative absorption enhancements due to the mixing state of atmospheric black carbon’. Science (New York, N.Y.), 339, 393.

A journal article with 2 authors

Steel, W. H. & Walker, R. A. 2003. Measuring dipolar width across liquid-liquid interfaces with ‘molecular rulers’. Nature, 424, 296–299.

A journal article with 3 authors

Thomas, A. M., Nadeau, R. M. & Bürgmann, R. 2009. Tremor-tide correlations and near-lithostatic pore pressure on the deep San Andreas fault. Nature, 462, 1048–1051.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Qiu, Y., Cai, W., Guo, X. & Ng, B. 2014. The asymmetric influence of the positive and negative IOD events on China’s rainfall. Scientific reports, 4, 4943.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Boussabaine, A. 2013. Risk Pricing Strategies for Public-Private Partnerships Projects. John Wiley & Sons, Oxford pp.

An edited book

Erko, A., Idir, M., Krist, T. & Michette, A. G. (eds). 2008. Modern Developments in X-Ray and Neutron Optics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, Springer Series in optical science, XXIV, 534 p. 299 illus., 5 illus. in color pp.

A chapter in an edited book

Yumoto, M. & Daikoku, T. 2016. Basic Function. In: Tobimatsu, S. & Kakigi, R. (eds) Clinical Applications of Magnetoencephalography. Springer Japan, Tokyo, 97–112.

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

Andrew, E. 2015. Cold Light: Astronomers Go To The Ends Of The Earth To See Cosmic Carbon. IFLScience. World Wide Web Address: https://www.iflscience.com/space/cold-light-astronomers-go-ends-earth-see-cosmic-carbon/.

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. 1982. The Impact of Budget Cuts on Three Directorates of the National Science Foundation. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, PAD-82-25 pp.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Mier, L. M. 2012. Monitoring Electron Transfer Reactions Using Ultrafast UV-Visible and Infrared Spectroscopy. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State 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

Wagner, J. 2017. Mets Fix Duda’s Swing, With Help From an Angel. New York Times, B15.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Jacobson 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Steel & Walker 2003; Jacobson 2013).

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

Two authors: (Steel & Walker 2003)
Three or more authors: (Qiu et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Systematic Palaeontology
Abbreviation	J. Syst. Palaeontol.
ISSN (print)	1477-2019
ISSN (online)	1478-0941
Scope	Palaeontology