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

Bignami GF. 2000. The microscope’s coat of arms...or, the sting of the bee and the moons of Jupiter. Nature 405:999.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sloan PA, Palmer RE. 2005. Two-electron dissociation of single molecules by atomic manipulation at room temperature. Nature 434:367–371.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hessa T, White SH, von Heijne G. 2005. Membrane insertion of a potassium-channel voltage sensor. Science (New York, N.Y.) 307:1427.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Gruber T, Freeley M, Thuille N, Heit I, Shaw S, Long A, Baier G. 2006. Comment on “PDK1 nucleates T cell receptor-induced signaling complex for NF-kappaB activation.” Science (New York, N.Y.) 312:55; author reply 55.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Shimizu H. 2017. Shimizu’s Dermatology. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Santos NC, Pasquini L, Correia ACM, Romaniello M (eds.). 2008. Precision Spectroscopy in Astrophysics: Proceedings of the ESO/Lisbon/Aveiro Conference held in Aveiro, Portugal, 11–15 September 2006. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Madalińska-Bugaj E, Łukaszewicz W. 2005. Belief Revision Revisited. In: Gelbukh A, Albornoz Á de, Terashima-Marín H eds. MICAI 2005: Advances in Artificial Intelligence: 4th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Monterrey, Mexico, November 14-18, 2005. Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 31–40.

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

Fang J. 2015.Giant Shrimp-Like Creature Was Once The Largest Animal On Earth. Available at https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/giant-filter-feeder-was-once-largest-animal-planet/ (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. 1989. ADP Systems: VA Actions to Improve Management of Information Resources. 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

Janowiecki S. 2015. The evolutionary status of high and extremely low surface brightness dwarf galaxies. Doctoral dissertation Thesis. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.

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

Otis J. 2017. Decades After a Stroke, Seeking Independence and Normalcy. New York Times:A20.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bignami, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Bignami, 2000; Sloan & Palmer, 2005).

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

Two authors: (Sloan & Palmer, 2005)
Three authors: (Hessa, White & von Heijne, 2005)
4 or more authors: (Gruber 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