How to format your references using the SpringerPlus citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for SpringerPlus. 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

Passey BH (2015) Geochemistry. Biogeochemical tales told by isotope clumps. Science 348:394–395

A journal article with 2 authors

Cameron R, Schüssler M (2015) Solar physics. The crucial role of surface magnetic fields for the solar dynamo. Science 347:1333–1335

A journal article with 3 authors

Wuchty S, Jones BF, Uzzi B (2007) The increasing dominance of teams in production of knowledge. Science 316:1036–1039

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Walker MP, Brakefield T, Hobson JA, Stickgold R (2003) Dissociable stages of human memory consolidation and reconsolidation. Nature 425:616–620

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Simpkins AM, Simpkins CA (2010) Meditation and Yoga in Psychotherapy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Lichtfouse E, Schwarzbauer J, Robert D (eds) (2013) Green Materials for Energy, Products and Depollution. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

A chapter in an edited book

Gjedde A, Bauer WR, Wong DF (2011) Neuroreceptor Mapping In Vivo: Monoamines. In: Bauer WR, Wong DF (eds) Neurokinetics: The Dynamics of Neurobiology in Vivo. Springer US, Boston, MA, pp 131–152

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 SpringerPlus.

Blog post

Andrew E (2014) New Study Says Beef 10x More Damaging To The Environment Than Chicken, Pork Or Dairy Foods. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-study-says-beef-10x-more-damaging-environment-chicken-pork-or-dairy-foods/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (2010) Propane and Heating Oil: Federal Oversight of the Propane Education and Research Council and National Oilheat Research Alliance Should Be Strengthened. 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

Ahlert D (2015) Application of Graph Theoretic Clustering on Some Biomedical Data Sets. Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois 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

Zucchino D, Solomon BC (2017) Newly Freed From ISIS but Stuck Without Water, Neighbors Find a Way. New York Times A4

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Passey 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Cameron and Schüssler 2015; Passey 2015).

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

Two authors: (Cameron and Schüssler 2015)
Three or more authors: (Walker et al. 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	SpringerPlus
Abbreviation	Springerplus
ISSN (online)	2193-1801
Scope	Multidisciplinary