How to format your references using the Reviews of Geophysics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Reviews of Geophysics. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
Kagan, J. C. (2013). Immunology. Sensing endotoxins from within. Science (New York, N.Y.), 341(6151), 1184–1185.
A journal article with 2 authors
Mesgarani, N., & Chang, E. F. (2012). Selective cortical representation of attended speaker in multi-talker speech perception. Nature, 485(7397), 233–236.
A journal article with 3 authors
Montague, P. R., Hyman, S. E., & Cohen, J. D. (2004). Computational roles for dopamine in behavioural control. Nature, 431(7010), 760–767.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Tian, L., Li, J., Sun, J., Ma, E., & Shan, Z.-W. (2013). Visualizing size-dependent deformation mechanism transition in Sn. Scientific Reports, 3, 2113.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Vaughan, D., Robinson, N., Lucas, N., & Arulkumaran, S. (2010). Handbook of Obstetric High Dependency Care. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
An edited book
Santini-Araujo, E., Kalil, R. K., Bertoni, F., & Park, Y.-K. (Eds.). (2015). Tumors and Tumor-Like Lesions of Bone: For Surgical Pathologists, Orthopedic Surgeons and Radiologists. London: Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Esterline, A., Rorie, T., & Homaifar, A. (2006). A Process-Algebraic Agent Abstraction. In C. A. Rouff, M. Hinchey, J. Rash, W. Truszkowski, & D. Gordon-Spears (Eds.), Agent Technology from a Formal Perspective (pp. 99–137). London: Springer.

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 Reviews of Geophysics.

Blog post
Andrew, E. (2015, October 30). Trick Or Treat? The Psychology Of Fright And Halloween Horrors. Retrieved October 30, 2018, from https://www.iflscience.com/brain/trick-or-treat-psychology-fright-and-halloween-horrors/

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. (2015). Telecommunications: FCC Should Evaluate the Efficiency and Effectiveness of the Lifeline Program (No. GAO-15-335). 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
Watson, A. M. (2009). A novel role for MUC7 mucin glycoprotein in the innate immunity and genetic propensity of asthma (Doctoral dissertation). George Washington University, Washington, DC.

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
Sisario, B. (2017, September 3). Superstar Adjusts to a Streaming World. New York Times, p. B1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Kagan, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Kagan, 2013; Mesgarani & Chang, 2012).

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

  • Two authors: (Mesgarani & Chang, 2012)
  • Three or more authors: (Tian et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleReviews of Geophysics
AbbreviationRev. Geophys.
ISSN (online)1944-9208
ScopeGeophysics

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