How to format your references using the Marine Ecology Progress Series citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Marine Ecology Progress Series. 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

Smaglik P (2004) Bricks and mortar. Arizona plots a course. Nature 428:782.

A journal article with 2 authors

Murayama Y, Uhlmann F (2014) Biochemical reconstitution of topological DNA binding by the cohesin ring. Nature 505:367–371.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gupta A, Zadafiya P, Mahalakshmi R (2014) Differential contribution of tryptophans to the folding and stability of the attachment invasion locus transmembrane β-barrel from Yersinia pestis. Sci Rep 4:6508.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Cardinale BJ, Srivastava DS, Duffy JE, Wright JP, Downing AL, Sankaran M, Jouseau C (2006) Effects of biodiversity on the functioning of trophic groups and ecosystems. Nature 443:989–992.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Scott DW (2008) Color Atlas of Farm Animal Dermatology. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK.

An edited book

Fichtinger G, Martel A, Peters T (eds) (2011) Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention – MICCAI 2011: 14th International Conference, Toronto, Canada, September 18-22, 2011, Proceedings, Part II. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Maynard AE, Greenfield PM (2005) An Ethnomodel of Teaching and Learning. In: Learning in Cultural Context: Family, Peers, and School. International and Cultural Psychology Series, Martini MI (ed) Springer US, Boston, MA, p 75–103

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 Marine Ecology Progress Series.

Blog post

Evans K (2016) Optimism Significantly Cuts Risk Of Deadly Diseases. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/optimism-significantly-cuts-risk-of-deadly-diseases/ (accessed 30 October 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 (1994) [Comments on EPA Authority to Exempt Clean-Fuel Vehicles from Transportation Control Measures]. 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

Purdy DW (2017) Identifying Shallow Foundation Failure Modes and Mechanisms Using Surveillance of a Transparent Granular Soil Surrogate. Doctoral dissertation, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL

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

Goldstein J (2017) Asked to Reduce Prison Rape, Then Accused of Sexual Abuse. New York Times:A22.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Smaglik 2004, Murayama & Uhlmann 2014).

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

Two authors: (Murayama & Uhlmann 2014)
Three authors: (Gupta et al. 2014)
99 or more authors: (Cardinale et al. 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	Marine Ecology Progress Series
Abbreviation	Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.
ISSN (print)	0171-8630
ISSN (online)	1616-1599
Scope	Aquatic Science Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Ecology