How to format your references using the Methods in Oceanography citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Methods in 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

O’Rourke, D., 2014. The science of sustainable supply chains. Science 344, 1124–1127.

A journal article with 2 authors

Conner, S.D., Schmid, S.L., 2003. Regulated portals of entry into the cell. Nature 422, 37–44.

A journal article with 3 authors

Skoglund, G., Nockert, M., Holst, B., 2013. Viking and early Middle Ages northern Scandinavian textiles proven to be made with hemp. Sci. Rep. 3, 2686.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Ma, H., Ren, H., Meng, S., Sun, F., Zhu, G., 2013. Novel porphyrinic porous organic frameworks for high performance separation of small hydrocarbons. Sci. Rep. 3, 2611.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Fight, A., 2004. Understanding International Bank Risk. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Oxford, UK.

An edited book

Sholarin, E.A., 2015. Environmental Project Management: Principles, Methodology, and Processes, Environmental Science and Engineering. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Zielinska, T., 2007. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), in: Ceccarelli, M. (Ed.), Distinguished Figures in Mechanism and Machine Science: Their Contributions and Legacies Part 1, History of Mechanism and Machine Science. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 117–134.

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 Methods in Oceanography.

Blog post

Andrew, E., 2014. Rats Use Their Whiskers Like Humans Use Their Fingers [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/rats-use-their-whiskers-humans-use-their-fingers/ (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, 2013. FAA Oversight of Procedures and Technologies to Prevent and Mitigate the Effects of Dense, Continuous Smoke in the Cockpit (No. GAO-13-551R). 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

Weissflug, K.G., 2009. Effects of Positive Behavior Support Programs on Student Behaviors (Doctoral dissertation). Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO.

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

Wasik, J.F., 2016. Trading Stocks for Bonds Poses Its Own Risks. New York Times B4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (O’Rourke, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Conner and Schmid, 2003; O’Rourke, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Conner and Schmid, 2003)
Three or more authors: (Ma et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Methods in Oceanography
Abbreviation	Meth. Oceanogr.
ISSN (print)	2211-1220
Scope	Aquatic Science Oceanography Ocean Engineering