How to format your references using the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society (ZJLS). 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
Aubert J. 2015. PLANETARY SCIENCE. Ancient planetary dynamos, take two. Science (New York, N.Y.) 349: 475–476.
A journal article with 2 authors
Keusch GT, Medlin CA. 2003. Tapping the power of small institutions. Nature 422: 561–562.
A journal article with 3 authors
Provencio I, Rollag MD, Castrucci AM. 2002. Photoreceptive net in the mammalian retina. This mesh of cells may explain how some blind mice can still tell day from night. Nature 415: 493.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Yang H, Li Q, Fan J, Holloman WK, Pavletich NP. 2005. The BRCA2 homologue Brh2 nucleates RAD51 filament formation at a dsDNA-ssDNA junction. Nature 433: 653–657.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Chen N. 2010. Aerothermodynamics of Turbomachinery. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Alonso MJ, Garcia-Fuentes M (Eds.). 2014. Nano-Oncologicals: New Targeting and Delivery Approaches. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Sha S, Jun L, Qinghua Z, Wei Z. 2011. Automatic Chinese Topic Term Spelling Correction in Online Pinyin Input. In: Park JJ,, In: Jin H,, In: Liao X,, In: Zheng R, eds. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering. Proceedings of the International Conference on Human-centric Computing 2011 and Embedded and Multimedia Computing 2011: HumanCom & EMC 2011. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 23–36.

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 Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.

Blog post
Davis J. 2016. Tiny Teeth In Corkscrew Poop Show Ancient Sharks Were Cannibalizing Their Young. IFLScience.

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. 1993. Test and Evaluation: DOD Has Been Slow In Improving Testing of Software-Intensive Systems. 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
Hatton H. 2013. How Rural Elementary Building Principals Conceptualize the Programs in Their Schools, the Processes of Connecting Students to Programs, and Their Leadership Role in Doing So. Unpublished thesis, 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
Crow K. 2000. What Rhymes With Asbestos? An Urban Musical in Three Acts. New York Times: 148.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Aubert, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Keusch & Medlin, 2003; Aubert, 2015).

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

  • Two authors: (Keusch & Medlin, 2003)
  • Three authors: (Provencio et al., 2002)
  • 4 or more authors: (Yang et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleZoological Journal of the Linnean Society
AbbreviationZool. J. Linn. Soc.
ISSN (print)0024-4082
ISSN (online)1096-3642
ScopeAnimal Science and Zoology
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

Other styles