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

Zimmerman P.D. 2011. Science since 9/11: Homeland insecurity. Nature. 477:153–154.

A journal article with 2 authors

Akbalik G., Schuman E.M. 2014. Molecular biology. mRNA, live and unmasked. Science. 343:375–376.

A journal article with 3 authors

Wang K., Dickinson R.E., Liang S. 2009. Clear sky visibility has decreased over land globally from 1973 to 2007. Science. 323:1468–1470.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Speck O., Hughes S.C., Noren N.K., Kulikauskas R.M., Fehon R.G. 2003. Moesin functions antagonistically to the Rho pathway to maintain epithelial integrity. Nature. 421:83–87.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Robson Wright M. 2005. An Introduction to Chemical Kinetics. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Norer R., editor. 2016. Genetic Technology and Food Safety. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Akerkar R., Sajja P.S. 2016. Fuzzy Logic. In: Sajja P.S., editor. Intelligent Techniques for Data Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing. p. 95–123.

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. 2015. Discovery Of New Biomarkers Could Lead To Earlier Detection Of Pancreatic Cancer. Available from https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/discovery-new-biomarkers-could-lead-earlier-detection-pancreatic-cancer/.

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. 2003. Intercity Passenger Rail: Issues for Consideration in Developing an Intercity Passenger Rail Policy. .

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Julfayan-Gregorian V. 2017. Success Strategies of First-Generation Foreign-Born Leaders. .

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 (Zimmerman 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Zimmerman 2011; Akbalik and Schuman 2014).

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

Two authors: (Akbalik and Schuman 2014)
Three or more authors: (Speck et al. 2003)

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