How to format your references using the Science of the Total Environment citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Science of the Total Environment. 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

Hand, E., 2008. Plumes of methane identified on Mars. Nature 455, 1018.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gonnermann, H.M., Mukhopadhyay, S., 2009. Preserving noble gases in a convecting mantle. Nature 459, 560–563.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ruff, C.C., Ugazio, G., Fehr, E., 2013. Changing social norm compliance with noninvasive brain stimulation. Science 342, 482–484.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

de Pater, I., Hammel, H.B., Showalter, M.R., van Dam, M.A., 2007. The dark side of the rings of Uranus. Science 317, 1888–1890.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hochstadt, H., 1988. Integral Equations. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Kleinbaum, D.G., 2012. Survival Analysis: A Self-Learning Text, Third Edition, Statistics for Biology and Health. Springer, New York, NY.

A chapter in an edited book

Tadatomo, K., 2013. Epitaxy Part B. Epitaxial Growth of GaN on Patterned Sapphire Substrates, in: Seong, T.-Y., Han, J., Amano, H., Morkoc, H. (Eds.), III-Nitride Based Light Emitting Diodes and Applications, Topics in Applied Physics. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 59–81.

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 Science of the Total Environment.

Blog post

Luntz, S., 2016. Smallpox Was A Newly Emerging Disease When It Swept The World [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL (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, 2010. Postsecondary Education: Many States Collect Graduates’ Employment Information, but Clearer Guidance on Student Privacy Requirements Is Needed (No. GAO-10-927). 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

Escobedo, N.L., 2014. A continuing bonds grief support group for Latinas who have lost a child: A grant proposal (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

Williams, J., 2017. Journalists In Australia Stage Strike Over Job Cuts. New York Times A6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hand, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Gonnermann and Mukhopadhyay, 2009; Hand, 2008).

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

Two authors: (Gonnermann and Mukhopadhyay, 2009)
Three or more authors: (de Pater et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	Science of the Total Environment
Abbreviation	Sci. Total Environ.
ISSN (print)	0048-9697
Scope	Environmental Chemistry Environmental Engineering Pollution Waste Management and Disposal

Research and Writing Guides