How to format your references using the Vadose Zone Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Vadose Zone 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

Hilton, D.R. 2007. Geochemistry. The leaking mantle. Science 318(5855): 1389–1390.

A journal article with 2 authors

Thodey, K., and C.D. Smolke. 2011. Cell biology. Bringing it together with RNA. Science 333(6041): 412–413.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gavriil, F.P., V.M. Kaspi, and P.M. Woods. 2002. Magnetar-like X-ray bursts from an anomalous X-ray pulsar. Nature 419(6903): 142–144.

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Karl, D.M., E.A. Laws, P. Morris, P.J.L. Williams, and S. Emerson. 2003. Global carbon cycle: metabolic balance of the open sea. Nature 426(6962): 32.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Powsner, R.A., M.R. Palmer, and E.R. Powsner. 2013. Essentials of Nuclear Medicine Physics and Instrumentation. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK.

An edited book

Roux, C., editor. 2012. Safe Spaces: Human Rights Education in Diverse Contexts. SensePublishers, Rotterdam.

A chapter in an edited book

Zhang, Y. 2015. Characteristics of Mobile Teaching and Learning. In: Zhang, Y. (aimee), editor, Handbook of Mobile Teaching and Learning. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. p. 11–28

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 Vadose Zone Journal.

Blog post

Andrew, E. 2015. Teeny Songbird Makes Colossal 1700 Mile Journey Over Atlantic. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/teeny-songbird-makes-colossal-1700-mile-journey-over-atlantic/ (accessed 30 October 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. 2011. School Improvement Grants: Early Implementation Under Way, but Reforms Affected by Short Time Frames. 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

Koester, A. 2017. It All Started on a Lake.

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

Pilon, M. 2013. Differing Views on Value of High School Tests. New York Times: SP6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hilton, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Hilton, 2007; Thodey and Smolke, 2011).

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

Two authors: (Thodey and Smolke, 2011)
Three or more authors: (Karl et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Vadose Zone Journal
Abbreviation	Vadose Zone J.
ISSN (online)	1539-1663
Scope	Soil Science