How to format your references using the Limnology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Limnology. 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
Smaglik P (2003) Wrapped in red tape. Nature 423:783
A journal article with 2 authors
Witt E, Ashworth A (2002) Biomedicine. D-Day for BRCA2. Science 297:534
A journal article with 3 authors
Kirchner JW, Feng X, Neal C (2000) Fractal stream chemistry and its implications for contaminant transport in catchments. Nature 403:524–527
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Fan HS, Wang H, Zhao N, et al (2014) Nano-porous architecture of N-doped carbon nanorods grown on graphene to enable synergetic effects of supercapacitance. Sci Rep 4:7426

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Parke RD (2013) Future Families. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ
An edited book
Koch F, Guttmann C, Busquets D (eds) (2015) Advances in Social Computing and Multiagent Systems: 6th International Workshop on Collaborative Agents Research and Development, CARE 2015 and Second International Workshop on Multiagent Foundations of Social Computing, MFSC 2015, Istanbul, Turkey, May 4, 2015, Revised Selected Papers. Springer International Publishing, Cham
A chapter in an edited book
Steiber A, Alänge S (2016) Entrepreneurship: What It Really Is, and Why It Must Be Integrated into Management of the Firm. In: Alänge S (ed) The Silicon Valley Model: Management for Entrepreneurship. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 53–63

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.

Blog post
Hamilton K (2015) The 8 Books Neil deGrasse Tyson Thinks Every Person Should Read. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/book-recommendations-renowned-scientists/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (2008) Traffic Safety Programs: Progress, States’ Challenges, and Issues for Reauthorization. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Stewart AM (2014) Estimation of urban-enhanced infiltration and groundwater recharge, Sierra Vista subbasin, southeast Arizona USA. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona

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
Kanter J (2016) Bucking Resistance, Canada and E.U. Sign Trade Deal. New York Times A3

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Witt and Ashworth 2002; Smaglik 2003).

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

  • Two authors: (Witt and Ashworth 2002)
  • Three or more authors: (Fan et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleLimnology
AbbreviationLimnology (Tokyo)
ISSN (print)1439-8621
ISSN (online)1439-863X
ScopeAquatic Science
Ecology
Water Science and Technology

Other styles