How to format your references using the NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences. 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.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Elvis, M., 2012. Let’s mine asteroids--for science and profit. Nature 485, 549.
A journal article with 2 authors
Kennel, C., Dressler, A., 2014. Space science. Coping with uncertainty in space science planning. Science 343, 140–141.
A journal article with 3 authors
Coultas, L., Chawengsaksophak, K., Rossant, J., 2005. Endothelial cells and VEGF in vascular development. Nature 438, 937–945.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Baek, D., Villén, J., Shin, C., Camargo, F.D., Gygi, S.P., Bartel, D.P., 2008. The impact of microRNAs on protein output. Nature 455, 64–71.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Ghosh, A., Berg, S., 2014. Arrow Pushing in Inorganic Chemistry. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Conati, C., McCoy, K., Paliouras, G. (Eds.), 2007. User Modeling 2007: 11th International Conference, UM 2007, Corfu, Greece, July 25-29, 2007. Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
A chapter in an edited book
Delgado, A., Jensen, R.M., Schulte, C., 2009. Generating Optimal Stowage Plans for Container Vessel Bays, in: Gent, I.P. (Ed.), Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming - CP 2009: 15th International Conference, CP 2009 Lisbon, Portugal, September 20-24, 2009 Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 6–20.

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 NJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences.

Blog post
Andrew, E., 2015. Chimps Use Spears To Hunt [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/innovative-female-chimps-may-have-pioneered-tool-use-hunting/ (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, 2002. Social Security Administration: Agency Must Position Itself Now to Meet Profound Challenges (No. GAO-02-289T). 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
Slotterback, D., 2010. Parent Partner Program and Organization (3P-O) parents mentoring parents in child welfare: A grant-writing 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
Powell, M., Walsh, M.W., 2010. A.I.G. to Pay $725 Million In Ohio Case. New York Times B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Elvis, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Elvis, 2012; Kennel and Dressler, 2014).

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

  • Two authors: (Kennel and Dressler, 2014)
  • Three or more authors: (Baek et al., 2008)

About the journal

Full journal titleNJAS - Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences
AbbreviationNJAS Wageningen J. Life Sci.
ISSN (print)1573-5214
ScopeAgronomy and Crop Science
Animal Science and Zoology
Food Science
Plant Science
Development

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