How to format your references using the PeerJ citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for PeerJ. 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

Horn K. 2004. Physics. Charging atoms, one by one. Science (New York, N.Y.) 305:483–484.

A journal article with 2 authors

Peppe DJ, Royer DL. 2015. ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE. Can climate feel the pressure? Science (New York, N.Y.) 348:1210–1211.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sessa P, Meconi F, Han S. 2014. Double dissociation of neural responses supporting perceptual and cognitive components of social cognition: evidence from processing of others’ pain. Scientific reports 4:7424.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Wilf P, Labandeira CC, Johnson KR, Ellis B. 2006. Decoupled plant and insect diversity after the end-Cretaceous extinction. Science (New York, N.Y.) 313:1112–1115.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lloret J, Shulman G, Love RM. 2013. Condition and Health Indicators of Exploited Marine Fishes. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.

An edited book

Sheen E, Karremann I (eds.). 2016. Shakespeare in Cold War Europe: Conflict, Commemoration, Celebration. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.

A chapter in an edited book

Sappington TW. 2014. Emerging issues in Integrated Pest Management Implementation and Adoption in the North Central USA. In: Peshin R, Pimentel D eds. Integrated Pest Management: Experiences with Implementation, Global Overview, Vol.4. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 65–97.

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 PeerJ.

Blog post

Davis J. 2015.More Refined Blood Test Could Cut Possible Heart Attack Admissions By Two-Thirds. Available at https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/more-refined-blood-test-could-cut-possible-heart-attack-admissions-two-thirds/ (accessed October 30, 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. 2008. No Child Left Behind Act: Education Actions Could Improve the Targeting of School Improvement Funds to Schools Most in Need of Assistance. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Wang N. 2015. Computational Studies on Biomolecular Diffusion and Electrostatics. Doctoral dissertation Thesis. La Jolla, CA: University of California San Diego.

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

Smallwood C. 2015. On Edge. New York Times:M2226.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Horn, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Horn, 2004; Peppe & Royer, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Peppe & Royer, 2015)
Three authors: (Sessa, Meconi & Han, 2014)
4 or more authors: (Wilf et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	PeerJ
Abbreviation	PeerJ
ISSN (online)	2167-8359
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Medicine General Neuroscience