How to format your references using the Limnology and Oceanography citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Limnology and Oceanography. 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

Lander, E. S. 2011. Genome-sequencing anniversary. The accelerator. Science 331: 1024.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hoeller, D., and I. Dikic. 2009. Targeting the ubiquitin system in cancer therapy. Nature 458: 438–444.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cheung, W. W. L., R. Watson, and D. Pauly. 2013. Signature of ocean warming in global fisheries catch. Nature 497: 365–368.

A journal article with 9 or more authors

Möller, P., D. G. Madland, A. J. Sierk, and A. Iwamoto. 2001. Nuclear fission modes and fragment mass asymmetries in a five-dimensional deformation space. Nature 409: 785–790.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Raheja, D. G., and M. Allocco. 2006. Assurance Technologies Principles and Practices, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Kyriakides, E., and M. Polycarpou, eds. 2015. Intelligent Monitoring, Control, and Security of Critical Infrastructure Systems, Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Lowe, E. K., C. Cuomo, and M. I. Arnone. 2016. A Differential Transcriptomic Approach to Compare Target Genes of Homologous Transcription Factors in Echinoderm Species, p. 55–63. In A. Rogato, V. Zazzu, and M. Guarracino [eds.], Dynamics of Mathematical Models in Biology: Bringing Mathematics to Life. Springer International Publishing.

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 Limnology and Oceanography.

Blog post

Andrew, E. 2015. Sugary Drinks may Contribute to Almost 200,000 Deaths Worldwide each Year. IFLScience.

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. 2009. Technology Transfer: Clearer Priorities and Greater Use of Innovative Approaches Could Increase the Effectiveness of Technology Transfer at Department of Energy Laboratories. GAO-09-548. GAO-09-548 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

Garcia, M. 2015. College preparedness program for high school students in South Los Angeles, California: A grant proposal. 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

Cooper, B. M. 2017. The Tailor of 125th Street. New York Times, June 3

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Lander 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Hoeller and Dikic 2009; Lander 2011).

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

Two authors: (Hoeller and Dikic 2009)
Three or more authors: (Möller et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Limnology and Oceanography
Abbreviation	Limnol. Oceanogr.
ISSN (print)	0024-3590
ISSN (online)	1939-5590
Scope	Aquatic Science Oceanography