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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Bornens, M., 2012. The centrosome in cells and organisms. Science 335, 422–426.

A journal article with 2 authors

Byrne, S., Ingersoll, A.P., 2003. A sublimation model for martian south polar ice features. Science 299, 1051–1053.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bustamante, C., Bryant, Z., Smith, S.B., 2003. Ten years of tension: single-molecule DNA mechanics. Nature 421, 423–427.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Ali, M.M.U., Roe, S.M., Vaughan, C.K., Meyer, P., Panaretou, B., Piper, P.W., Prodromou, C., Pearl, L.H., 2006. Crystal structure of an Hsp90-nucleotide-p23/Sba1 closed chaperone complex. Nature 440, 1013–1017.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Deschamps, J.-P., Bioul, G.J.A., Sutter, G.D., 2005. Synthesis of Arithmetic Circuits. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Zhmakin, A.I. (Ed.), 2009. Fundamentals of Cryobiology: Physical Phenomena and Mathematical Models, Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Morales, J.O., Watts, A.B., McConville, J.T., 2012. Mechanical Particle-Size Reduction Techniques, in: Williams, R.O., III, Watts, A.B., Miller, D.A. (Eds.), Formulating Poorly Water Soluble Drugs, AAPS Advances in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Series. Springer, New York, NY, pp. 133–170.

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. Breakthrough Melanoma Treatment Fast Tracked By FDA [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL (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, 1994. Welfare to Work: JOBS Automated Systems Do Not Focus on Program’s Employment Objective (No. AIMD-94-44). 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

Tambornini, T.F., 2013. Supportive and subsidized housing solutions for Sonoma County: A grant project (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

Williams, J., 2016. In Her Shoes. New York Times BR4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bornens, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Bornens, 2012; Byrne and Ingersoll, 2003).

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

Two authors: (Byrne and Ingersoll, 2003)
Three or more authors: (Ali et al., 2006)

About the journal

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