How to format your references using the The Plant Genome citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for The Plant Genome. 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
Cobb, M. (2001). Wondrous order. Nature, 413, 779
A journal article with 2 authors
Peters, S.E., & Gaines, R.R. (2012). Formation of the “Great Unconformity” as a trigger for the Cambrian explosion. Nature, 484, 363–366
A journal article with 3 authors
Arakawa, H., Hauschild, J., & Buerstedde, J.-M. (2002). Requirement of the activation-induced deaminase (AID) gene for immunoglobulin gene conversion. Science (New York, N.Y.), 295, 1301–1306
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Belonoshko, A.B., Ramzan, M., Mao, H.-K., & Ahuja, R. (2013). Atomic diffusion in solid molecular hydrogen. Scientific reports, 3, 2340

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Ndjountche, T. (2016). Digital Electronics 1. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.
An edited book
Dörner, R., Göbel, S., Kickmeier-Rust, M., Masuch, M., & Zweig, K. eds. (2016). Entertainment Computing and Serious Games: International GI-Dagstuhl Seminar 15283, Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, July 5-10, 2015, Revised Selected Papers. Springer International Publishing, Cham.
A chapter in an edited book
Zondag, B., & Geurs, K. (2011). Coupling a Detailed Land-Use Model and a Land-Use and Transport Interaction Model. In E. Koomen & J. Borsboom-van Beurden (Eds.), Land-Use Modelling in Planning Practice (pp. 79–95). Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

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 The Plant Genome.

Blog post
Davis, J. (2015). Ongoing Algal Blooms Linked To The Largest Die-Off Of Great Whales Ever Recorded. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ongoing-algal-blooms-linked-largest-die-great-whales-ever-recorded/ (accessed October 30, 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. (2008). Space Acquisitions: DOD’s Goals for Resolving Space Based Infrared System Software Problems Are Ambitious. 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
Wheeler, T.J. (2009). Efficient construction of accurate multiple alignments and large-scale phylogenies [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

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
Burghardt, L.F. (2006). Mutiny in the Harbor: One Ship Too Many. New York Times, 14NJ6

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Cobb, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Cobb, 2001; Peters & Gaines, 2012).

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

  • Two authors: (Peters & Gaines, 2012)
  • Three or more authors: (Belonoshko et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleThe Plant Genome
AbbreviationPlant Genome
ISSN (online)1940-3372
ScopeAgronomy and Crop Science
Plant Science
Genetics

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