How to format your references using the Oikos citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Oikos. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
Baker, M. 2010. Cellular imaging: Taking a long, hard look. - Nature 466: 1137–1140.
A journal article with 2 authors
Lechler, T. and Fuchs, E. 2005. Asymmetric cell divisions promote stratification and differentiation of mammalian skin. - Nature 437: 275–280.
A journal article with 3 authors
Li, Z.-Z., Zhang, F.-C. and Wang, Q.-H. 2014. Majorana modes in a topological insulator/s-wave superconductor heterostructure. - Sci. Rep. 4: 6363.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Meng, H., Xie, W.-J., Jiang, Z.-Q., Podobnik, B., Zhou, W.-X. and Stanley, H. E. 2014. Systemic risk and spatiotemporal dynamics of the US housing market. - Sci. Rep. 4: 3655.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Niles, J. D. 2016. Old English Literature. - John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
2009. Mathematical Physiology: II: Systems Physiology (J Keener and J Sneyd, Eds.). - Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Salomaa, R. 2014. Coaching of Key Talents in Multinational Companies. - In: Al Ariss, A. (ed), Global Talent Management: Challenges, Strategies, and Opportunities. Management for Professionals. Springer International Publishing, pp. 43–63.

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 Oikos.

Blog post
Andrew, E. 2015. Promising Antibody That Neutralises HIV Shows Why We Shouldn’t Give Up On A Vaccine. - IFLScience

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 1989. Implementation of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
De Felice, D. 2013. A Phenomenological Study of Teaching Endangered Languages Online: Perspectives from Nahua and Mayan Educators.

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
Saslow, L. 2008. Unexpected State Aid to Ease School Taxes. - New York Times: LI2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Baker 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Lechler and Fuchs 2005, Baker 2010).

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

  • Two authors: (Lechler and Fuchs 2005)
  • Three or more authors: (Meng et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleOikos
AbbreviationOikos
ISSN (print)0030-1299
ISSN (online)1600-0706
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

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