How to format your references using the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Swiss Journal of Palaeontology. 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
Mesot, J. (2006). Applied physics. The neutron spin-echo technique at full strength. Science (New York, N.Y.), 312(5782), 1888–1889.
A journal article with 2 authors
Hayashi, T., & Carthew, R. W. (2004). Surface mechanics mediate pattern formation in the developing retina. Nature, 431(7009), 647–652.
A journal article with 3 authors
Liotta, L. A., Ferrari, M., & Petricoin, E. (2003). Clinical proteomics: written in blood. Nature, 425(6961), 905.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Di Rosa, I., Simoncelli, F., Fagotti, A., & Pascolini, R. (2007). Ecology: the proximate cause of frog declines? Nature, 447(7144), E4-5; discussion E5-6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Chakrabarty, P. (2012). A Guide to Academia. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
An edited book
Fuchs, A., Nijman, E., & Priebsch, H.-H. (Eds.). (2016). Automotive NVH Technology. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Deville, M. O., & Gatski, T. B. (2012). Constitutive Equations: General Principles. In T. B. Gatski (Ed.), Mathematical Modeling for Complex Fluids and Flows (pp. 69–94). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

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 Swiss Journal of Palaeontology.

Blog post
Andrew, E. (2015, March 24). Shape-Shifting Frog Discovered In Ecuador. IFLScience. IFLScience. 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. (1990). FAA Encountering Problems in Acquiring Major Automated Systems (No. T-IMTEC-90-6). 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
Zhang, Y. (2013). Crossroads A World War II story (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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
Shpigel, B. (2017, May 22). From Hockey 101 to a Ph.D. New York Times, p. D1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Mesot 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Hayashi and Carthew 2004; Mesot 2006).

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

  • Two authors: (Hayashi and Carthew 2004)
  • Three or more authors: (Di Rosa et al. 2007)

About the journal

Full journal titleSwiss Journal of Palaeontology
AbbreviationSwiss J. Palaeontol.
ISSN (print)1664-2376
ISSN (online)1664-2384
ScopePalaeontology

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