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

Goldston D. 2008. A delicate balance. Nature 453:838.

A journal article with 2 authors

Antonakis J, Dalgas O. 2009. Predicting elections: child’s play! Science (New York, N.Y.) 323:1183.

A journal article with 3 authors

Erickson GM, Rogers KC, Yerby SA. 2001. Dinosaurian growth patterns and rapid avian growth rates. Nature 412:429–433.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Park YD, Hanbicki AT, Erwin SC, Hellberg CS, Sullivan JM, Mattson JE, Ambrose TF, Wilson A, Spanos G, Jonker BT. 2002. A group-IV ferromagnetic semiconductor: MnxGe1-x. Science (New York, N.Y.) 295:651–654.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Balan V, Neagu M. 2011. Jet Single-Time Lagrange Geometry and Its Applications. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Lim KYT (ed.). 2015. Disciplinary Intuitions and the Design of Learning Environments. Singapore: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Lee I, Jeong O, Kang S. 2011. Study on Emergency Services for VoIP Based on IP Network vs. Domestic Emergency Network. In: Lee G, Howard D, Ślęzak D eds. Convergence and Hybrid Information Technology: 5th International Conference, ICHIT 2011, Daejeon, Korea, September 22-24, 2011. Proceedings. Communications in Computer and Information Science. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 31–38.

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

Taub B. 2017.These Super Slow-Mo Videos Show A Viper Strike In All Its Glory. Available at https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/these-super-slow-mo-videos-show-viper-strike-all-its-glory/ (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. 1980. Debarment for Violation of Davis-Bacon Act. 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

Kamis RP. 2013. The Relationship between Expanded Concepts of Self and Well-Being. Doctoral dissertation Thesis. Scottsdale, AZ: Northcentral 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

Newman A. 2015. Solemn Vows Were Routine for Woman in Fraud Case. New York Times:A19.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Goldston, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Goldston, 2008; Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Antonakis & Dalgas, 2009)
Three authors: (Erickson, Rogers & Yerby, 2001)
4 or more authors: (Park et al., 2002)

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