How to format your references using the Zoological Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Zoological Letters. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

1. Gisin N. Physics. New additions to the Schrödinger cat family. Science. 2006;312:63–4.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. O’Shea PG, Freund HP. Free-electron lasers. Status and applications. Science. 2001;292:1853–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Rustagi D, Engel S, Kosfeld M. Conditional cooperation and costly monitoring explain success in forest commons management. Science. 2010;330:961–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Vollrath F, Hawkins N, Porter D, Holland C, Boulet-Audet M. Differential Scanning Fluorimetry provides high throughput data on silk protein transitions. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5625.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Bradley D. Managing Minor Musculoskeletal Injuries and Conditions. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2015.

An edited book

1. Eckert C, Katsikas SK, Pernul G, editors. Trust, Privacy, and Security in Digital Business: 11th International Conference, TrustBus 2014, Munich, Germany, September 2-3, 2014. Proceedings. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Gaudenzi B. Assessing Risks in Projects and Processes. In: Zsidisin GA, Ritchie B, editors. Supply Chain Risk: A Handbook of Assessment, Management, and Performance. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2009. p. 67–82.

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 Letters.

Blog post

1. Taub B. The Peanut Genes That Cause Allergy In Humans Have Been Identified. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016.

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

1. Government Accountability Office. Mass Transit: Issues Related to Fiscal Year 1995 Appropriations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1994 Apr. Report No.: T-RCED-94-180.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Lotrecchiano GR. Social Mechanisms of Team Science: A Descriptive Case Study Using a Multilevel Systems Perspective Employing Reciprocating Structuration Theory [Doctoral dissertation]. [Washington, DC]: George Washington University; 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

1. Hollander S. Friends and Family Run for 9/11 Victims. New York Times. 2002 Nov 2;D6.

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	Zoological Letters
Abbreviation	Zoological Lett.
ISSN (online)	2056-306X
Scope