How to format your references using the Precambrian Research citation style

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

Rieppel, O., 2009. Evolution. How did the turtle get its shell? Science 325, 154–155.

A journal article with 2 authors

Mabuchi, H., Doherty, A.C., 2002. Cavity quantum electrodynamics: coherence in context. Science 298, 1372–1377.

A journal article with 3 authors

Yu, Y., Huang, L., Cao, L., 2014. Semiconductor solar superabsorbers. Sci. Rep. 4, 4107.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Liu, C.-F., Fan, H., Gou, S.-C., Liu, W.-M., 2014. Crystallized and amorphous vortices in rotating atomic-molecular Bose-Einstein condensates. Sci. Rep. 4, 4224.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Thatcher, A., 2011. God, Sex, and Gender. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

An edited book

Ramiro Fariñas, D., Oris, M. (Eds.), 2016. New Approaches to Death in Cities during the Health Transition, International Studies in Population. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Goto, K., 2007. Parameters for detection of Alicyclobacillus and test methods, in: Yokota, A., Fujii, T., Goto, K. (Eds.), Alicyclobacillus: Thermophilic Acidophilic Bacilli. Springer Japan, Tokyo, pp. 49–78.

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 Precambrian Research.

Blog post

Fang, J., 2016. Snails Can’t Escape Carnivorous Sea Stars In Our Acidifying Oceans [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/snails-cant-escape/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2001. Federal Research and Development: Contributions to and Results of the Small Business Technology Transfer Program (No. GAO-01-766R). 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

Lord, V., 2015. Defining eating disorder recovery: A qualitative approach (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Bowley, G., 2016. Master of Trades, if Not Art, Says He Was Duped. New York Times A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Rieppel, 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Mabuchi and Doherty, 2002; Rieppel, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Mabuchi and Doherty, 2002)
Three or more authors: (Liu et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Precambrian Research
Abbreviation	Precambrian Res.
ISSN (print)	0301-9268
Scope	Geochemistry and Petrology Geology