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

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

Wolfe, J.M. (2005) Neuroscience. Watching single cells pay attention. Science, 308, 503–504.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kurtz, J. and Franz, K. (2003) Innate defence: evidence for memory in invertebrate immunity. Nature, 425, 37–38.

A journal article with 3 authors

De Pontieu, B., Title, A. and Carlsson, M. (2014) Eyeing the Sun. Probing the solar interface region. Introduction. Science, 346, 315.

A journal article with 10 or more authors

Marsh, R.L., Ellerby, D.J., Carr, J.A., Henry, H.T. and Buchanan, C.I. (2004) Partitioning the energetics of walking and running: swinging the limbs is expensive. Science, 303, 80–83.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Werner, M. (2015) Global Displacements, Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Kondo, M. ed. (2010) Hematopoietic Stem Cell Biology 1st ed., Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.

A chapter in an edited book

Cherry, M.J. (2012) Ritual as Education Concerning Social Space and Time. In D. Solomon, R. Fan, and P.-C. Lo, eds. Ritual and the Moral Life: Reclaiming the Tradition. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 53–73.

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 Journal.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J. (2016) In Spite Of The Headlines, You Don’t Need To Be Afraid Of Self-Driving Cars. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/second-tesla-crash-raises-unnecessary-questions-about-selfdriving-cars/ [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 (1985) Computers: Information on the Patent and Trademark Office Automation Program, 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

Mehta, V. (2009) Sparta in the Enlightenment. Doctoral dissertation. Washington, DC: George Washington 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

Gustines, G.G. (2015) Familiar Face on ‘Sesame Street’ Tells of Her Own Childhood. New York Times, C2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Wolfe, 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Wolfe, 2005; Kurtz and Franz, 2003).

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

Two authors: (Kurtz and Franz, 2003)
Three or more authors: (Marsh et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	The Plant Journal
Abbreviation	Plant J.
ISSN (print)	0960-7412
ISSN (online)	1365-313X
Scope	Plant Science Cell Biology Genetics