How to format your references using the Web Ecology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Web Ecology. 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
Knight, P. L.: Physics. The observation of matter wave fluctuations, Science, 310, 631–632, 2005.
A journal article with 2 authors
Matthews, H. D. and Solomon, S.: Atmosphere. Irreversible does not mean unavoidable, Science, 340, 438–439, 2013.
A journal article with 3 authors
Diemand, J., Moore, B., and Stadel, J.: Earth-mass dark-matter haloes as the first structures in the early Universe, Nature, 433, 389–391, 2005.
A journal article with 100 or more authors
Denicol, A. C., Dobbs, K. B., McLean, K. M., Carambula, S. F., Loureiro, B., and Hansen, P. J.: Canonical WNT signaling regulates development of bovine embryos to the blastocyst stage, Sci. Rep., 3, 1266, 2013.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Scott, A. W. and Frobenius, R.: RF Measurements for Cellular Phones and Wireless Data Systems, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2008.
An edited book
Fogo, A. B., Cohen, A. H., Jennette, J. C., Bruijn, J. A., and Colvin, R. B. (Eds.): Fundamentals of Renal Pathology, Springer, New York, NY, 2007.
A chapter in an edited book
Wang, J., Xiong, Z., Meng, H., Wang, Y., and Wang, Y.: Synthetic Biology Triggers New Era of Antibiotics Development, in: Reprogramming Microbial Metabolic Pathways, edited by: Wang, X., Chen, J., and Quinn, P., Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 95–114, 2012.

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 Web Ecology.

Blog post
How To Grow Your Own Bismuth Crystals: https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/grow-your-own-bismuth-crystals/, last access: 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: Special Education: Clearer Guidance Would Enhance Implementation of Federal Disciplinary Provisions, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2003.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
Zelaya, G. S.: Hopelessness and diabetes: Do Hispanic diabetic patients feel less hopeless eating fruits, vegetables and exercising regularly?, Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2012.

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
Chapman, M. M. and Vlasic, B.: Volvo Makes Comeback With Return to Its Values, New York Times, 13th January, B3, 2016.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Knight, 2005).
This sentence cites two references (Knight, 2005; Matthews and Solomon, 2013).

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

  • Two authors: (Matthews and Solomon, 2013)
  • Three or more authors: (Denicol et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal titleWeb Ecology
AbbreviationWeb Ecol.
ISSN (print)2193-3081
ISSN (online)1399-1183
ScopeEcology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Ecology

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