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

Rubbia C (2011) Simon van der Meer (1925-2011). Nature 472:170.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ware DM, Thomson RE (2005) Bottom-up ecosystem trophic dynamics determine fish production in the Northeast Pacific. Science 308:1280–1284.

A journal article with 3 authors

Moyen J-F, Stevens G, Kisters A (2006) Record of mid-Archaean subduction from metamorphism in the Barberton terrain, South Africa. Nature 442:559–562.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Martick M, Horan LH, Noller HF, Scott WG (2008) A discontinuous hammerhead ribozyme embedded in a mammalian messenger RNA. Nature 454:899–902.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Moeller RR (2013) Executive’s Guide to IT Governance. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Canuto C (2008) Mathematical Analysis I. Tabacco A (ed) Springer, Milano.

A chapter in an edited book

Capello F (2015) Teleoncology and Children. In: Tele-oncology. TELe-Health, Gatti G, Pravettoni G, Capello F (eds) Springer International Publishing, Cham, p 43–49

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

Taub B (2016) New Melanoma Drug Hailed As “A Step Forward” In Battle Against Deadly Skin Cancer. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/new-melanoma-drug-hailed-step-forward-battle-against-deadly-skin-cancer/ (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 (1980) Agencies Should Encourage Greater Computer Use on Federal Design Projects. 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

Olanisa EL (2012) Mental health issues and use of health care services among older immigrant women in California. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA

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

Hodara S (2015) A Painter of Clouds, Revisited. New York Times:CT8.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Rubbia 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Ware & Thomson 2005, Rubbia 2011).

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

Two authors: (Ware & Thomson 2005)
Three authors: (Moyen et al. 2006)
99 or more authors: (Martick et al. 2008)

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