How to format your references using the Systematic Biology citation style

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

Keller E.F. 2007. A clash of two cultures. Nature. 445:603.

A journal article with 2 authors

Züllig S., Hengartner M.O. 2004. Cell biology. Tickling macrophages, a serious business. Science. 304:1123–1124.

A journal article with 3 authors

Karunadasa H.I., Chang C.J., Long J.R. 2010. A molecular molybdenum-oxo catalyst for generating hydrogen from water. Nature. 464:1329–1333.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Herzog F., Primorac I., Dube P., Lenart P., Sander B., Mechtler K., Stark H., Peters J.-M. 2009. Structure of the anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome interacting with a mitotic checkpoint complex. Science. 323:1477–1481.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Vaseghi S.V. 2001. Advanced Digital Signal Processing and Noise Reduction. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Herawan T., Ghazali R., Deris M.M., editors. 2014. Recent Advances on Soft Computing and Data Mining: Proceedings of The First International Conference on Soft Computing and Data Mining (SCDM-2014) Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Johor, MalaysiaJune 16th-18th, 2014. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Patel B. 2016. Non-surgical Root Canal Treatment. In: Patel B., editor. Endodontic Treatment, Retreatment, and Surgery: Mastering Clinical Practice. Cham: Springer International Publishing. p. 71–100.

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 Systematic Biology.

Blog post

Davis J. 2016. Two Zika Vaccines Found To Provide Total Immunity In Mice. Available from https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/two-zika-vaccines-found-to-provide-total-immunity-in-mice/.

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. Business Systems Modernization: Scope and Content of DOD’s Congressional Report and Executive Oversight of Investments Need to Improve. .

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Danso Odei P.K. 2017. Effective Resolution of The Bibiani-Anhwianso-Bekwai District Healthcare Delivery System: An Outcome-Based Evaluative Case. .

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

Billard M. 2010. Saves Those Stripes, Grab Some Scarves. New York Times.:E5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Keller 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Züllig and Hengartner 2004; Keller 2007).

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

Two authors: (Züllig and Hengartner 2004)
Three or more authors: (Herzog et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	Systematic Biology
Abbreviation	Syst. Biol.
ISSN (print)	1063-5157
ISSN (online)	1076-836X
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Genetics