How to format your references using the Palaeontology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Palaeontology. 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
HARTZELL, H. C. 2007. Cell biology. The stress of relaxation. Science (New York, N.Y.), 317, 1331–1332.
A journal article with 2 authors
AEBERSOLD, R. and MANN, M. 2003. Mass spectrometry-based proteomics. Nature, 422, 198–207.
A journal article with 3 authors
WARD, A. B., SALI, A. and WILSON, I. A. 2013. Biochemistry. Integrative structural biology. Science (New York, N.Y.), 339, 913–915.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
XU, Y., QIAO, J., HOU, X. and PAN, S. 2013. Plutonium in soils from northeast China and its potential application for evaluation of soil erosion. Scientific reports, 3, 3506.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
SATO, T., KAMMEN, D. M., DUAN, B., MACUHA, M., ZHOU, Z., WU, J., TARIQ, M. and ASFAW, S. A. 2015. Smart Grid Standards. John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd, Singapore.
An edited book
TÖRÖK, P. 2007. Optical Imaging and Microscopy: Techniques and Advanced Systems. In KAO, F.-J. (ed.) Optical Sciences. Vol. 87. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
A chapter in an edited book
GOODMAN, J., DONG, H., LANGDON, P. M. and CLARKSON, P. J. 2006. Factors Involved in Industry’s Response to Inclusive Design. In CLARKSON, J., LANGDON, P. and ROBINSON, P. (eds.) Designing Accessible Technology, Springer, London, 31–39 pp.

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 Palaeontology.

Blog post
FANG, J. 2014. New Map Shows That Asteroids Hit Earth Far More Often Than We Thought. IFLScience. Downloaded from https://www.iflscience.com/environment/over-500-fireballs-have-impacted-earth-last-20-years/ on 30 October 2018. 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. 2007. Federal Disability Assistance: Stronger Federal Oversight Could Help Assure Multiple Programs’ Accountability. 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
ASTORGA, J. 2012. Mentoring program for emancipated foster youth: A grant proposal.Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CApp.

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, M. W. 2016. Bill to Ease Puerto Rico Through $72 Billion Debt Crisis Introduced in House. New York Times, B8.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hartzell 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Aebersold & Mann 2003; Hartzell 2007).

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

  • Two authors: (Aebersold & Mann 2003)
  • Three or more authors: (Xu et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titlePalaeontology
AbbreviationPalaeontology
ISSN (print)0031-0239
ISSN (online)1475-4983
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Palaeontology

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