How to format your references using the Protoplasma citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Willyard C (2011) Imaging: Seeing is believing. Nature 480:S52-3
A journal article with 2 authors
Williams LE, Bargh JA (2008) Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth. Science 322:606–607
A journal article with 3 authors
Giulini A, Wang J, Jackson D (2004) Control of phyllotaxy by the cytokinin-inducible response regulator homologue ABPHYL1. Nature 430:1031–1034
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Xie C-L, Wang W-W, Zhang S-F, et al (2014) Continuous dopaminergic stimulation (CDS)-based treatment in Parkinson’s disease patients with motor complications: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Sci Rep 4:6027

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Caban S, Mehlführer C, Rupp M, Wrulich M (2011) Evaluation of HSDPA and LTE. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK
An edited book
Kyung C-M (ed) (2016) Theory and Applications of Smart Cameras. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht
A chapter in an edited book
Cheu EY, Ng SK, Quek C (2010) Enhancing Decision Support System with Neural Fuzzy Model and Simple Model Visualizations. In: Jain LC, Lim CP (eds) Handbook on Decision Making: Vol 1: Techniques and Applications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 85–116

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 Protoplasma.

Blog post
Andrew E (2014) Amateur Fossil Hunter Discovered Complete, 7ft Skeleton Of Ancient Marine Reptile. 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 (2003) Opportunities for Oversight and Improved Use of Taxpayer Funds: Examples from Selected GAO Work. 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
Kamis RP (2013) The Relationship between Expanded Concepts of Self and Well-Being. Doctoral dissertation, 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
Wagner J (2017) Alone Among Starters: Healthy and Dominant. New York Times B11

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Willyard 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Williams and Bargh 2008; Willyard 2011).

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

  • Two authors: (Williams and Bargh 2008)
  • Three or more authors: (Xie et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleProtoplasma
AbbreviationProtoplasma
ISSN (print)0033-183X
ISSN (online)1615-6102
ScopePlant Science
Cell Biology
General Medicine

Other styles