How to format your references using the Social and Natural Sciences Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Social and Natural Sciences Journal. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Dalton, R. (2001). Bilateral Vietnam study plans to assess war fallout of dioxin. Nature, 413(6855), 442.

A journal article with 2 authors

Reipurth, B., & Mikkola, S. (2012). Formation of the widest binary stars from dynamical unfolding of triple systems. Nature, 492(7428), 221–224.

A journal article with 3 authors

Stone, L., Olinky, R., & Huppert, A. (2007). Seasonal dynamics of recurrent epidemics. Nature, 446(7135), 533–536.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Singh, S. K., Hawkins, C., Clarke, I. D., Squire, J. A., Bayani, J., Hide, T., Henkelman, R. M., Cusimano, M. D., & Dirks, P. B. (2004). Identification of human brain tumour initiating cells. Nature, 432(7015), 396–401.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rittereiser, C. M., & Kochard, L. E. (2010). Top Hedge Fund Investors. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Jameson, J. H., & Eogan, J. (Eds.). (2013). Training and Practice for Modern Day Archaeologists (Vol. 1). Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Dodgshon, R. A., & Olsson, E. G. A. (2007). Seasonality in European Mountain Areas: A Study in Human Ecology. In H. Palang, H. Sooväli, & A. Printsmann (Eds.), Seasonal Landscapes (pp. 85–101). Springer Netherlands.

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 Social and Natural Sciences Journal.

Blog post

Andrews, R. (2015, October 24). Virtual Maze Test Predicts Likelihood Of Getting Alzheimer’s Disease. IFLScience; IFLScience.

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. (2013). Communications Networks: Outcome-Based Measures Would Assist DHS in Assessing Effectiveness of Cybersecurity Efforts (GAO-13-275). 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

Ithier-Guzman, W. (2010). Assessing the ability of soils and sediment to adsorb and retain cesium-137 in Puerto Rico [Doctoral dissertation]. University of South Florida.

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

LISA W. FODERARO; Reporting for this article was contributed by Ford Fessenden, as well as by Kathleen McGrory in Westchester, Akhtar, F., Sophia Chang on, Koblin, J., Nate Schweber in, Lazo, A., & Connecticut, A. S. in. (2006, April 2). That Sound You Hear? The Market Coming Down to Earth. New York Times, 14NJ6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Dalton, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Dalton, 2001; Reipurth & Mikkola, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Reipurth & Mikkola, 2012)
Three authors: (Stone et al., 2007)
6 or more authors: (Singh et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Social and Natural Sciences Journal
ISSN (print)	1804-4158
ISSN (online)	1804-9710
Scope