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
BEAUDET, A. L. 2012. Neuroscience. Preventable forms of autism? Science (New York, N.Y.), 338, 342–343.
A journal article with 2 authors
PATEL, M. R. and SHEN, K. 2009. RSY-1 is a local inhibitor of presynaptic assembly in C. elegans. Science (New York, N.Y.), 323, 1500–1503.
A journal article with 3 authors
WANG, L., BAADE, D. and PATAT, F. 2007. Spectropolarimetric diagnostics of thermonuclear supernova explosions. Science (New York, N.Y.), 315, 212–214.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
WHEELER, T. M., SOBCZAK, K., LUECK, J. D., OSBORNE, R. J., LIN, X., DIRKSEN, R. T. and THORNTON, C. A. 2009. Reversal of RNA dominance by displacement of protein sequestered on triplet repeat RNA. Science (New York, N.Y.), 325, 336–339.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
JOYNER, M. 2009. Integration Marketing. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
2015. Impacts of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident on Fish and Fishing Grounds. In NAKATA, K. and SUGISAKI, H. (eds.) Springer Japan, Tokyo.
A chapter in an edited book
ROBINSON, W. and CAMPBELL, R. J. 2010. School Values and Effective Pedagogy: Case Studies of Two Leading Edge Schools in England. In LOVAT, T., TOOMEY, R. and CLEMENT, N. (eds.) International Research Handbook on Values Education and Student Wellbeing, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 75–90 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
HALE, T. 2017. Icelandic Police Think Drivers Are Drunk, But They’re Just Distracted By Northern Lights. IFLScience. Downloaded from https://www.iflscience.com/environment/icelandic-police-think-drivers-are-drunk-but-theyre-just-distracted-by-northern-lights/ 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. 1987. Preparing, Documenting, and Referencing Lotus Spreadsheets. 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
LIZA, J. S. 2009. Mentors’ perceptions of bullying in middle and high school settings.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
STEVENSON, A. and GOLDSTEIN, M. 2016. Fund Manager Facing Charges Is Found Dead at Home. New York Times, B3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Beaudet 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Patel & Shen 2009; Beaudet 2012).

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

  • Two authors: (Patel & Shen 2009)
  • Three or more authors: (Wheeler et al. 2009)

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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