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

Caron SJC 2013: Eppendorf. Brains don’t play dice--or do they? Science, 342, 574.

A journal article with 2 authors

Li G, Luo Z-X 2006: A Cretaceous symmetrodont therian with some monotreme-like postcranial features. Nature, 439, 195–200.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hayashi K, de Sousa Lopes SMC, Surani MA 2007: Germ cell specification in mice. Science, 316, 394–396.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Nagaoka T, Inutsuka A, Begum K, Bin hafiz KM, Kishi M 2014: Vangl2 regulates E-cadherin in epithelial cells. Sci. Rep., 4, 6940.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Fernando A, Worrall ST, Ekmekcioǧlu E 2013: 3DTV. 3DTV. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK.

An edited book

Neustein A, Markowitz JA (Eds.) 2013: Where Humans Meet Machines: Innovative Solutions for Knotty Natural-Language Problems. Where Humans Meet Machines: Innovative Solutions for Knotty Natural-Language Problems. Springer: New York, NY.

A chapter in an edited book

Zaki MH, Hasan O, Tahar S, Al-Sammane G 2015: Framework for Formally Verifying Analog and Mixed-Signal Designs. In: Computational Intelligence in Analog and Mixed-Signal (AMS) and Radio-Frequency (RF) Circuit Design, Eds. Fakhfakh M, Tlelo-Cuautle E, Siarry P, pp. 115–145. Springer International Publishing: Cham.

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

Andrew E 2014: Moss Revived After 1500 Years of Permafrost. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/moss-revived-after-1500-years-permafrost/ (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 1993: Federal Research: Superconducting Super Collider’s Total Estimated Cost Will Exceed $11 Billion. Federal Research: Superconducting Super Collider’s Total Estimated Cost Will Exceed $11 Billion. 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

Tucker T 2014: Psychoeducational support groups for postadoptive parents: A grant-writing project. Psychoeducational support groups for postadoptive parents: A grant-writing project. 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

Hollander S 2009: Why the Smoke Doesn’t Get in Their Eyes. New York Times, CY6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Caron, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Caron, 2013; Li and Luo, 2006).

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

Two authors: (Li and Luo, 2006)
Three or more authors: (Nagaoka et al., 2014)

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

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