How to format your references using the Taxon citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Taxon. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
Smaglik, P. 2005. Come together. Nature 434: 252–253.
A journal article with 2 authors
Pollard, D., & DeConto, R.M. 2009. Modelling West Antarctic ice sheet growth and collapse through the past five million years. Nature 458: 329–332.
A journal article with 3 authors
van Zuilen, M.A., Lepland, A., & Arrhenius, G. 2002. Reassessing the evidence for the earliest traces of life. Nature 418: 627–630.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Zhao, H., Li, L., Wang, Y., & Wang, R. 2014. Shape-controllable formation of poly-imidazolium salts for stable palladium N-heterocyclic carbene polymers. Sci. Rep. 4: 5478.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Avlonas, N., & Nassos, G.P. 2013. Practical Sustainability Strategies. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Roy, U. 2016. Impact of Climate Change on Small Scale Hydro-turbine Selections. M. Majumder, Ed. SpringerBriefs in Energy. Singapore: Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Norman, R.A., & Young, E.M. 2014. Dermatitis Herpetiformis. Pp. 43–46 in: E.M. Young Jr (ed.), Atlas of Geriatric Dermatology. London: 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 Taxon.

Blog post
Andrew, E. 2015, January 8. An extra second on the clock: why moving from astronomic to atomic time is a tricky business. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/extra-second-clock-why-moving-astronomic-atomic-time-tricky-business/ (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. 2012. DOD Business Systems Modernization: Governance Mechanisms for Implementing Management Controls Need to Be Improved. No. GAO-12-685. 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
Mycroft, D. 2012. Minorities in leadership and financial performance of their Fortune 500 companies. Doctoral dissertation. Malibu, CA: Pepperdine 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
Kelly, K. 2002, October 12. Making My Own Music. New York Times, p. A21.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik, 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Smaglik, 2005; Pollard & DeConto, 2009).

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

  • Two authors: (Pollard & DeConto, 2009)
  • Three or more authors: (Zhao & al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal titleTaxon
AbbreviationTaxon
ISSN (print)0040-0262
ISSN (online)1996-8175
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Plant Science

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