How to format your references using the Soil Science and Plant Nutrition citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Soil Science and Plant Nutrition. 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

Gomory R 2010: Benoît Mandelbrot (1924-2010). Nature, 468, 378.

A journal article with 2 authors

Lujambio A, Lowe SW 2012: The microcosmos of cancer. Nature, 482, 347–355.

A journal article with 3 authors

McCarty KF, Nobel JA, Bartelt NC 2001: Vacancies in solids and the stability of surface morphology. Nature, 412, 622–625.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Brunner DO, De Zanche N, Fröhlich J, Paska J, Pruessmann KP 2009: Travelling-wave nuclear magnetic resonance. Nature, 457, 994–998.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wesley LD 2010: Geotechnical Engineering in Residual Soils. Geotechnical Engineering in Residual Soils. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Kuntz E 2008: Hepatology Textbook and Atlas: History · Morphology Biochemistry · Diagnostics Clinic · Therapy. Hepatology Textbook and Atlas: History · Morphology Biochemistry · Diagnostics Clinic · Therapy (H-D Kuntz, Ed.). Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Evans AA, Levine AJ 2015: Membrane Rheology. In: Complex Fluids in Biological Systems: Experiment, Theory, and Computation, Ed. Spagnolie SE, pp. 159–186. Springer: New York, NY.

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 Soil Science and Plant Nutrition.

Blog post

Hale T 2016: Tony Hawk Tries Out Some Weightless Skateboarding On ‘The Vomit Comet’. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/tony-hawk-tries-out-some-weightless-skateboarding-vomit-comet/ (October, 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 2016: Revolving Funds: Additional Pricing and Performance Information for FAA and Treasury Funds Could Enhance Agency Decisions on Shared Services. Revolving Funds: Additional Pricing and Performance Information for FAA and Treasury Funds Could Enhance Agency Decisions on Shared Services. 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

Yarijanian AA 2017: Cardborigami’s Strategic Business Plan to Address Urban Homelessness. Cardborigami’s Strategic Business Plan to Address Urban Homelessness. Doctoral dissertation Thesis, California State University, Long Beach.

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: Kendrick Lamar Returns to No. 1. New York Times, C3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gomory, 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Gomory, 2010; Lujambio and Lowe, 2012).

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

Two authors: (Lujambio and Lowe, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Brunner et al., 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	Soil Science and Plant Nutrition
Abbreviation	Soil Sci. Plant Nutr.
ISSN (print)	0038-0768
ISSN (online)	1747-0765
Scope	Plant Science Soil Science