How to format your references using the Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences. 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
Di Noia, J.M.: Molecular biology: Unequal opportunity during class switching. Nature. 525, 44–45 (2015)
A journal article with 2 authors
Dennett-Thorpe, J., de Bruyn, A.G.: Interstellar scintillation as the origin of the rapid radio variability of the quasar J1819+3845. Nature. 415, 57–60 (2002)
A journal article with 3 authors
McCulloh, K.A., Sperry, J.S., Adler, F.R.: Water transport in plants obeys Murray’s law. Nature. 421, 939–942 (2003)
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Wang, Z., Ying, P., Li, P., Zhang, D., Huang, H., Tian, H., Zhang, Y.: Switching suppression and enhancement of fluorescence and six-wave mixing by phase modulation. Sci. Rep. 3, 3417 (2013)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Subramanian, M.N.: Polymer Blends and Composites. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2017)
An edited book
Furukawa, T., Hurley, J.B., Kawamura, S. eds: Vertebrate Photoreceptors: Functional Molecular Bases. Springer Japan, Tokyo (2014)
A chapter in an edited book
Tomkin, G.H., Owens, D.: Lipoprotein Metabolism and Alterations Induced by Insulin Resistance and Diabetes. In: Jenkins, A.J., Toth, P.P., and Lyons, T.J. (eds.) Lipoproteins in Diabetes Mellitus. pp. 101–124. Springer, New York, NY (2014)

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 Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences.

Blog post
Luntz, S.: The Amazon River Flows Backwards, And Now Scientists Have Figured Out Why, https://www.iflscience.com/physics/amazon-river-flows-backwards-and-now-scientists-have-figured-out-why/

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: Airfield Pavement: Keeping Nation’s Runways in Good Condition Could Require Substantially Higher Spending. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1998)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Lambert, M.: Generational Differences in the Workplace: The Perspectives of Three Generations on Career Mobility, (2015)

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
Callahan, K.: Quotation Of The Day, (2011)

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Di Noia 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Dennett-Thorpe and de Bruyn 2002; Di Noia 2015).

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

  • Two authors: (Dennett-Thorpe and de Bruyn 2002)
  • Three or more authors: (Wang et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleLetters in Spatial and Resource Sciences
AbbreviationLett. Spat. Resour. Sci.
ISSN (print)1864-4031
ISSN (online)1864-404X
ScopeEconomics and Econometrics
Geography, Planning and Development
Demography
Urban Studies

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