How to format your references using the Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences. 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
Anders, A.M., 2014. Earth science: rain on the parade. Nature 511, 413–414.
A journal article with 2 authors
Naya, Y., Suzuki, W.A., 2011. Integrating what and when across the primate medial temporal lobe. Science 333, 773–776.
A journal article with 3 authors
Falkovich, G., Fouxon, A., Stepanov, M.G., 2002. Acceleration of rain initiation by cloud turbulence. Nature 419, 151–154.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Rondeau, G., Sánchez-Bayo, F., Tennekes, H.A., Decourtye, A., Ramírez-Romero, R., Desneux, N., 2014. Delayed and time-cumulative toxicity of imidacloprid in bees, ants and termites. Sci. Rep. 4, 5566.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Cleaver, H., Cawson, P., Gorin, S., Walker, S., 2009. Safeguarding Children. John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, West Sussex, UK.
An edited book
Cheng, K.S., Romero, G.E. (Eds.), 2005. Multiwavelength Approach to Unidentified Gamma-Ray Sources: A Second Workshop on the Nature of the High-Energy Unidentified Sources. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
A chapter in an edited book
Alber, Y., Ryazantseva, I., 2006. APPLICATIONS OF THE REGULARIZATION METHODS, in: Ryazantseva, I. (Ed.), Nonlinear Ill-Posed Problems of Monotone Type. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 259–310.

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 Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences.

Blog post
Luntz, S., 2016. Plant-Eating Dinosaur Success Was In The Jaws [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/planteating-dinosaur-success-was-in-the-jaws/ (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, 1995. National Airspace System: Comprehensive FAA Plan for Global Positioning System Is Needed (No. RCED-95-26). 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
Talice, K.W., 2017. An Assessment of Veterans Affairs Healthcare Leadership Competencies (Doctoral dissertation). Capella University, Minneapolis, MN.

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
Burghardt, L.F., 2008. For Sabbath on Saturdays, Fewer Open Shops. New York Times LI13.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Anders, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Anders, 2014; Naya and Suzuki, 2011).

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

  • Two authors: (Naya and Suzuki, 2011)
  • Three or more authors: (Rondeau et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleSaudi Journal of Biological Sciences
AbbreviationSaudi J. Biol. Sci.
ISSN (print)1319-562X
ScopeGeneral Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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