How to format your references using the Life Science Alliance citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Life Science Alliance (LSA). 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

Aldhous P (2000) Global warming could be bad news for Arctic ozone layer. Nature 404: 531.

A journal article with 2 authors

Yi X, Liu C (2014) Retention of cotyledons is crucial for resprouting of clipped oak seedlings. Sci Rep 4: 5145.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sergio F, Newton I, Marchesi L (2005) Conservation: top predators and biodiversity. Nature 436: 192.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Tsoi M, Jansen AG, Bass J, Chiang WC, Tsoi V V, Wyder P (2000) Generation and detection of phase-coherent current-driven magnons in magnetic multilayers. Nature 406: 46–48.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Tjong SC (2012) Polymer Composites with Carbonaceous Nanofillers (Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA).

An edited book

Anishchenko VS (2007) Nonlinear Dynamics of Chaotic and Stochastic Systems: Tutorial and Modern Developments (Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer).

A chapter in an edited book

Coosemans T, Sanfélix J, Messagie M, Van Mierlo J, Alves A, Waymel G (2015) Lightweight and Integrated Plastic Solutions for Power Battery Racks in Electric Vehicles. In Electric Vehicle Batteries: Moving from Research towards Innovation: Reports of the PPP European Green Vehicles Initiative, E. Briec, and B. Müller, eds. (Cham: Springer International Publishing), pp. 61–70.

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 Life Science Alliance.

Blog post

Carpineti A (2016) Astronomers Snap Infrared View Of The Distant Universe 13 Billion Light-Years Away (IFLScience) https://www.iflscience.com/space/astronomers-snap-infrared-view-of-the-distant-universe-13-billion-lightyears-away/ (accessed: 30/10/2018).

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) Multiple Launch Rocket System: Range Less Than Needed and Sustained Rocket Production Not Ensured (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

Clement TE (2009) The makings of digital modernism: Rereading Gertrude Stein’s “The Making of Americans” and poetry by Elsa von Freytag -Loringhoven. Doctoral dissertation. University of Maryland, College Park.

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

Gustines GG (2012) In New Digital Comics, Each Tap Holds a Surprise. New York Times: F5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Aldhous, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Aldhous, 2000; Yi & Liu, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Yi & Liu, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Tsoi et al, 2000)

About the journal

Full journal title	Life Science Alliance
ISSN (online)	2575-1077
Scope