How to format your references using the Journal of the Geological Society citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of the Geological Society. 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.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Pachauri, R.K. 2009. India pushes for common responsibility. Nature, 461, 1054.
A journal article with 2 authors
Kiel, S. and Little, C.T.S. 2006. Cold-seep mollusks are older than the general marine mollusk fauna. Science (New York, N.Y.), 313, 1429–1431.
A journal article with 3 authors
Ravishankara, A.R., Daniel, J.S. and Portmann, R.W. 2009. Nitrous oxide (N2O): the dominant ozone-depleting substance emitted in the 21st century. Science (New York, N.Y.), 326, 123–125.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Schwarz, D., Matta, B.M., Shakir-Botteri, N.L. and McPheron, B.A. 2005. Host shift to an invasive plant triggers rapid animal hybrid speciation. Nature, 436, 546–549.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Ronen, T. 2011. The Positive Power of Imagery.
An edited book
Tanaka, M. 2012. Computational Biomechanics: Theoretical Background and Biological/Biomedical Problems. Wada, S. and Nakamura, M. (eds). A First Course in “In Silico Medicine”.
A chapter in an edited book
Reiche, I. and Gourrier, A. 2016. Informative Potential of Multiscale Observations in Archaeological Biominerals Down to Nanoscale. In: Dillmann, P., Bellot-Gurlet, L. and Nenner, I. (eds) Nanoscience and Cultural Heritage. 75–122.

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 the Geological Society.

Blog post
Davis, J. 2017. New Robotic Exosuit Dramatically Cuts The Amount Of Energy Needed To Walk. IFLSciencehttps://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-robotic-exosuit-dramatically-cuts-the-amount-of-energy-needed-to-walk/.

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. 2002. Transportation Infrastructure: Cost and Oversight Issues on Major Highway and Bridge Projects. GAO-02-702T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Waterman, M.A. 2015. Housing for the Homeless Mentally Ill Population: A Grant Writing Project. Doctoral dissertation, 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. 2008. A Treasure Is Restored, With Culture Its Bounty. New York Times, A21.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Pachauri 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Kiel and Little 2006; Pachauri 2009).

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

  • Two authors: (Kiel and Little 2006)
  • Three or more authors: (Schwarz et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of the Geological Society
AbbreviationJ. Geol. Soc. London
ISSN (print)0016-7649
ISSN (online)2041-479X
ScopeGeology

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