How to format your references using the LITHOS citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for LITHOS. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
Cyranoski, D., 2003. Western Japan: Go west, young postdoc. Nature 424, 352–353.
A journal article with 2 authors
Danku, Z., Kun, F., 2013. Creep rupture as a non-homogeneous Poissonian process. Sci. Rep. 3, 2688.
A journal article with 3 authors
Church, J.A., White, N.J., Arblaster, J.M., 2005. Significant decadal-scale impact of volcanic eruptions on sea level and ocean heat content. Nature 438, 74–77.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Gong, Y., Cao, P., Yu, H.-J., Jiang, T., 2008. Crystal structure of the neurotrophin-3 and p75NTR symmetrical complex. Nature 454, 789–793.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Armstrong, R.A., Hilton, A.C., 2010. Statistical Analysis in Microbiology: Statnotes. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Veevers, N., 2011. Kurt Hahn: Inspirational, Visionary, Outdoor and Experiential Educator. SensePublishers, Rotterdam.
A chapter in an edited book
Vadász, P., 2008. Analytical Transition to Weak Turbulence and Chaotic Natural Convection in Porous Media, in: Vadász, P. (Ed.), Emerging Topics in Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Media: From Bioengineering and Microelectronics to Nanotechnology, Theory and Applications of Transport in Porous Media. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 111–132.

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 LITHOS.

Blog post
O`Callaghan, J., 2017. NASA Debuts New Planet Imager To Look At Worlds Around Other Stars [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-debuts-new-planet-imager-to-look-at-worlds-around-other-stars/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 1988. ADP Modernization: IRS’ Progress on the Electronic Filing System (No. IMTEC-88-40). 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
Amanoua, K.P., 2014. Langue et identité dans les milieux populaires québécois et antillais (Doctoral dissertation). University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA.

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
Goodman, P.S., 2017. As U.S. Raises Walls on Trade, Allies Move On. New York Times A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Cyranoski, 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Cyranoski, 2003; Danku and Kun, 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Danku and Kun, 2013)
  • Three or more authors: (Gong et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleLITHOS
AbbreviationLithos
ISSN (print)0024-4937
ScopeGeochemistry and Petrology

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