How to format your references using the Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres. 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
Sherman W (2009) Materials science. Building a better nano-biped. Science 324:46–47
A journal article with 2 authors
Yanina SV, Rosso KM (2008) Linked reactivity at mineral-water interfaces through bulk crystal conduction. Science 320:218–222
A journal article with 3 authors
Royer DL, Osborne CP, Beerling DJ (2003) Carbon loss by deciduous trees in a CO2-rich ancient polar environment. Nature 424:60–62
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Hegde SS, Vetting MW, Roderick SL, et al (2005) A fluoroquinolone resistance protein from Mycobacterium tuberculosis that mimics DNA. Science 308:1480–1483

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Wolf RA (2012) Atmospheric Pressure Plasma for Surface Modification. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ
An edited book
David E, Gerding E, Sarne D, Shehory O (eds) (2010) Agent-Mediated Electronic Commerce. Designing Trading Strategies and Mechanisms for Electronic Markets: AAMAS Workshop, AMEC 2009, Budapest, Hungary, May 12, 2009, and IJCAI Workshop, TADA 2009, Pasadena, CA, USA, July 13, 2009, Selected and Revised Papers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
A chapter in an edited book
Scherer L, Rossi JJ (2005) Cancer Therapeutic Applications of Ribozymes and RNAi. In: Curiel DT, Douglas JT (eds) Cancer Gene Therapy. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, pp 51–63

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 Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres.

Blog post
Luntz S (2016) Thinking Power Grows Faster Than Brain Size. In: IFLScience. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1999) Space Station: Status of Russian Involvement and Cost Control Efforts. 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
Milillo MS (2009) Analysis of emotional intelligence among management leaders and non-management leaders in software development. Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix

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
Walsh MW, Story L (2011) Seeking Business, States Loosen Insurance Rules. New York Times A1

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Sherman 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Yanina and Rosso 2008; Sherman 2009).

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

  • Two authors: (Yanina and Rosso 2008)
  • Three or more authors: (Hegde et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleOrigins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres
AbbreviationOrig. Life Evol. Biosph.
ISSN (print)0169-6149
ISSN (online)1573-0875
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Space and Planetary Science
General Medicine

Other styles