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:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX 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 title	Palaeontology
Abbreviation	Palaeontology
ISSN (print)	0031-0239
ISSN (online)	1475-4983
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Palaeontology

Research and Writing Guides