How to format your references using the Plant and Soil citation style

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

Klein CA (2013) Selection and adaptation during metastatic cancer progression. Nature 501:365–372

A journal article with 2 authors

West SA, Gardner A (2010) Altruism, spite, and greenbeards. Science 327:1341–1344

A journal article with 3 authors

Merlin C, Gegear RJ, Reppert SM (2009) Antennal circadian clocks coordinate sun compass orientation in migratory monarch butterflies. Science 325:1700–1704

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Shigenobu S, Watanabe H, Hattori M, et al (2000) Genome sequence of the endocellular bacterial symbiont of aphids Buchnera sp. APS. Nature 407:81–86

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Habib MAR (2010) Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK

An edited book

Feldmeyer D, Lübke JHR (eds) (2010) New Aspects of Axonal Structure and Function. Springer US, Boston, MA

A chapter in an edited book

Gonzalez RS, Washington K (2016) Biliary and Vascular Changes. In: Washington K (ed) Non-Neoplastic Liver Pathology: A Pathologist’s Survival Guide. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 37–69

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 Plant and Soil.

Blog post

Carpineti A (2016) It Might Be Difficult To Get Your Five-A-Day In Space. In: IFLScience. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1998) Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Potential for Widespread Disruption Calls for Strong Leadership and Partnerships. 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

Black AM (2006) Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Ohio Statewide Agricultural Leadership Program. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State 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

Pilon M (2012) Tae Kwon Do Issue Gets Britain’s Attention. New York Times B14

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Klein 2013).
This sentence cites two references (West and Gardner 2010; Klein 2013).

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

Two authors: (West and Gardner 2010)
Three or more authors: (Shigenobu et al. 2000)

About the journal

Full journal title	Plant and Soil
Abbreviation	Plant Soil
ISSN (print)	0032-079X
ISSN (online)	1573-5036
Scope	Plant Science Soil Science