How to format your references using the Trends in Plant Science citation style

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

Humphries, C. (2013) Adoptive cell therapy: Honing that killer instinct. Nature 504, S13-5

A journal article with 2 authors

Hejnol, A. and Martindale, M.Q. (2008) Acoel development indicates the independent evolution of the bilaterian mouth and anus. Nature 456, 382–386

A journal article with 3 authors

Sun, X.-Q. et al. (2014) Trading network predicts stock price. Sci. Rep. 4, 3711

A journal article with 3 or more authors

Yasuda, S. et al. (2014) Activation of Rheb, but not of mTORC1, impairs spine synapse morphogenesis in tuberous sclerosis complex. Sci. Rep. 4, 5155

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Halpin, D.W. and Senior, B.A. (2009) Financial Management and Accounting Fundamentals for Construction, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Bolc, L. et al., eds. (2010) Computer Vision and Graphics: International Conference, ICCVG 2010, Warsaw, Poland, September 20-22, 2010, Proceedings, Part II, 6375, Springer

A chapter in an edited book

King, J.A. and Chaney, E.E. (2011) Passing for Black in Seventeenth-Century Maryland. In Interpreting the Early Modern World: Transatlantic Perspectives (Beaudry, M. C. and Symonds, J., eds), pp. 87–112, Springer US

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 Trends in Plant Science.

Blog post

Hale, T. (2015) Video Shows An Orca Throwing A Seal 80 Feet Into The Air. IFLScience. [Online]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/video-shows-orca-punting-seal-80-feet-air/. [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 (1989) Laboratory Accreditation: Requirements Vary Throughout the Federal Government, 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

Diaz Gonzalez, A.J. (2017) High-Pressure Study of Bio-inspired Multi-Functional Nanocomposites Using Atomic Force Microscopy Methods. Doctoral dissertation, 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

Rothenberg, B. (2017) Sharapova’s Comeback to Start in GermanyNew York Times, B12

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Trends in Plant Science
Abbreviation	Trends Plant Sci.
ISSN (print)	1360-1385
ISSN (online)	1878-4372
Scope	Plant Science