How to format your references using the South African Journal of Geology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for South African Journal of Geology. 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
Smaglik, P. 2000. Varmus tells Congress to grasp thorny policy issues. Nature, 404, 530.
A journal article with 2 authors
Sikes, J.M. and Newmark, P.A. 2013. Restoration of anterior regeneration in a planarian with limited regenerative ability. Nature, 500, 77–80.
A journal article with 3 authors
Mellor, J., Nicoll, R.A. and Schmitz, D. 2002. Mediation of hippocampal mossy fiber long-term potentiation by presynaptic Ih channels. Science (New York, N.Y.), 295, 143–147.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Tang, K., Qiu, C., Ke, M., Lu, J., Ye, Y. and Liu, Z. 2014. Anomalous refraction of airborne sound through ultrathin metasurfaces. Scientific reports, 4, 6517.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Iwacz, G., Jajszczyk, A. and Zajączkowski, M. 2008. Multimedia Broadcasting and Multicasting in Mobile Networks. Chichester, UK, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
An edited book
Shah, R.B. 2012. Prostate Biopsy Interpretation: An Illustrated Guide. Berlin, Heidelberg, Springer, XVI, 185 p. 199 illus. in colorpp.
A chapter in an edited book
Regan, G., Flood, D. and Caffery, F.M. 2015. The Development and Validation of a Roadmap for Traceability. In: T. Rout, R.V. O’Connor and A. Dorling (Editors) Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination: 15th International Conference, SPICE 2015, Gothenburg, Sweden, June 16-17, 2015. Proceedings. Communications in Computer and Information Science. Cham, Springer International Publishing, 45–57.

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 South African Journal of Geology.

Blog post
Luntz, S. 2014.Orcas Tracked From Above. Available at https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/killer-whales-tracked-above/ (accessed 30 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 1987. Army Airlift: Need To Use Air Lines of Communications for Essential Items. Washington, DC, 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
Bennett, R.J. 2016. Exploring the effects of parasocial connection on relaxation exercise persistence in women. Doctoral dissertation Thesis. Minneapolis, MN, Capella University.

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
Greenhouse, L. 2007. Justices Overturn $79.5 Million in Punitive Damages Against Philip Morris. New York Times, A14.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Smaglik, 2000; Sikes and Newmark, 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Sikes and Newmark, 2013)
  • Three or more authors: (Tang et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleSouth African Journal of Geology
AbbreviationSouth Afr. J. Geol.
ISSN (print)1012-0750
ISSN (online)1996-8590
ScopeGeology

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