How to format your references using the Symbiosis citation style

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

Rabitz H (2006) Chemistry. Strong-arming molecular dynamics. Science 314:264–265

A journal article with 2 authors

Forte AM, Mitrovica JX (2001) Deep-mantle high-viscosity flow and thermochemical structure inferred from seismic and geodynamic data. Nature 410:1049–1056

A journal article with 3 authors

Turney CSM, Roberts RG, Jacobs Z (2006) Archaeology: progress and pitfalls in radiocarbon dating. Nature 443:E3; discussion E4

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Zhang Y, Jimenez-Cruz CA, Wang J, et al (2014) Bio-mimicking of proline-rich motif applied to carbon nanotube reveals unexpected subtleties underlying nanoparticle functionalization. Sci Rep 4:7229

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Aubrey SB (2010) The Profitable Hobby Farm. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Gasperini M, Maharana J (eds) (2008) String Theory and Fundamental Interactions: Gabriele Veneziano and Theoretical Physics: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Rowan L (2014) Ethical Researcher or Vampiric Consumer? In: Midgley W, Davies A, Oliver ME, Danaher PA (eds) Echoes: Ethics and Issues of Voice in Education Research. SensePublishers, Rotterdam, pp 35–51

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 Symbiosis.

Blog post

Andrews R (2017) Scientists Finally Unravel Hawaii’s Bizarre Origin Story. In: IFLScience. 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 (1989) Motor Vehicle Safety: Passive Restraints Needed to Make Light Trucks Safer. 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

Ratzlaff K (2012) Dynamics of chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) infection in amphibians in the Rincon Mountains and Tucson, Arizona. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona

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

Wagner J (2017) Rendon, Perhaps the Best Player on the Nationals, Hides in Plain Sight. New York Times SP3

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Rabitz 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Forte and Mitrovica 2001; Rabitz 2006).

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

Two authors: (Forte and Mitrovica 2001)
Three or more authors: (Zhang et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Symbiosis
Abbreviation	Symbiosis
ISSN (print)	0334-5114
ISSN (online)	1878-7665
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences