BIOL 2020: Botany: Citation Formatting Examples

An in-text citation contains the information so that if someone reading your paper wants to follow-up and read the original source of your information, they can do so by reading the refenced article. An in-text citation can be created in many ways depending upon your writing style.

Here are a some general guidelines:

• If there is one author, include the author's last name and date of publication

• If there are two authors, include both authors' last names and date of publication

• If there are three or more authors, include the last name of the first author followed by et al. and date of publication

Example 1:
In addition, floods are fundamental in driving the disturbance regime (Bendix 2000).

Example 2:
Our results show that the favorable conditions hypothesis (Levine and D'Antonio 1999) and resource heterogeneity hypothesis (Davies et al. 2005) may not be mutually exclusive.

Example 3:
Root porosity for Carex nigra was similar to those obtained by Visser et al. (2000) in hydroponic cultures.

References

The References section (bibliography) is found at the end of your paper and contains the complete reference for each of the in-text citations used in your paper. Generally, a citation includes the author(s), date, title and source of your publication.
 

• The entries in the References section should be in one alphabetical listing by author

• Within each entry, list the authors in the order that they appear in the article you read

• Include as many initials for each author as you find on the first page of the article

• All words in the journal title should be spelled out completely

• Only capitalize the first word in the article title as well as proper names

• Type the title exactly as you see it in the journal article

• Do not include any informtion about the database that you used to access the article.

• If the journal is only available online and has no print eqivalent, include a DOI number

• If there are beween 2 and 12 authors, include all

• Italicize species names

Book

Last name, First initial. Second initial., First initial. Second initial. Last name, and First initial. Second initial. Last name. Date.
     Book title. Publisher, City of publication, State of publication, Country of publication. 

Example:

Motulsky, H. and A. Christopoulos. 2004. Fitting models to biological data using linear and nonlinear regression: a practical
     guide to curve fitting. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Chapter in a Book

Last name of author of chapter, First initial. Second initial., and First initial. Second initial. Last   name.
     Date. Chapter title. Pages first-last in First initial. Second initial. Last name of editor, and First initial.
     Second initial. Last name of next editor, editors. Book title. Publisher, City of publication, State of
     publication, Country of publication.

Example:

Underwood, A. J., and E. J. Denley. 1984. Paradigms, explanations and generalizations in models for the structure of intertidal communities on rocky shores. Pages 151-180 in D. R. Strong, D. Simberloff, L.G. Abele, and A. B. Thistle, editors. Ecological communities: conceptual issues and the evidence. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

Website

Generally, you should not be citing websites. According to the author instructions for the journal Ecology (as well as all publications from the Ecological Association of America), "The Literature Cited section of a paper may refer only to permanently archived material...Because Internet sources typically have a short half-life, they may not be included in Literature Cited sections unless there is reasonable evidence of permanency (e.g., Ecological Archives). As a general rule, any publication that has an ISSN or ISBN is acceptable, but should be referenced by name (the URL may be added, but is not essential)."

These instructions refer to web sites, not journals that are available on the web (i.e., it is acceptable to cite the journals you find through the Library databases).

Last name, First initial. Second initial., First initial. Second initial. Last name, and First initial. Second initial. Last name. Date. Title of webpage. Sponsoring organization. web address

Example 1:

 Simpson, G.L. 2005. Cocorresp:co-correspondence analysis ordination methods 0.1-3. R package.
     http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/PACKAGES.html

Example 2:

Van Gils, J. A., T. Piersma, A. Dekinga, B. Spaans, and C. Kraan. 2006a. Shellfish-dredging pushes a flexible avian top predator out of a protected marine ecosystem. PLoS Biology  4:2399–2404.  

Look at the image below to see how a citation is created from an article.

Click on the image to enlarge.

One Author--Journal Article

Last name, First initial. Second initial. Date. Article title. Journal title Volume number:first page-last page.

Example:

DuBown, P.J. 1991. Morphological correlates of community structure in North American
     waterfowl. Community Ecology 1:147-156.

Two Authors--Journal Article

Last name, First initial. Second initial., and First initial. Second initial. Last name. Date. Article title. Journal title Volume number:
     first page-last page.

Example:

Stockard, M. E., and R. E. Gatten. 1983. Activity metabolism of painted turtles (Chrysemys picta). Copeia 1:214-221.

Three to Twelve Authors--Journal Article

Last name, First initial. Second initial., First initial. Second initial. Last name, First initial. Second initial. Last name,
     and First initial.Second initial. Last name. Date. Article title. Journal title Volume number: first page-last page.

Example:

Ducobu, H., J. Huisman, R.R. Jonker, and L. R. Mur. 1998. Competition between a prochlorophyte and a cyanobacteriium under
     various phosphorous regimes:comparison with the Droop model. Journal of Phycology 34:467-476.

Thirteen or More Authors--Journal Article

Last name, First initial. Second initial., et al. Date. Article title. Journal title Volume number: first page-last page.

Example:

McDowell, N., et al. 2008. Mechanisms of plant survival and mortality during drought: why do some plants survive while others succumb to     drought. New Phytologist 178:719-739.

Journal Article with a DOI

Last name, First initial. Second initial., First initial. Second initial. Last name, and First initial. Second initial. Last name. Date.
     Article title. Journal title Volume : [doi :doinumber].

Example:

Bastviken, D., J. Cole, M. Pace, and L. Tranvik. 2004. Methane emissions from lakes: dependence of lake characteristics,
     two regional assessments, and a global estimate. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 18: [doi: 10.1029/2004GB002238].

Government Documents/Technical Reports

Last name, First initial. Second initial., and First initial. Second initial. Last name. Date. Title. Sponsoring Agency or series name. Publication number. Publisher, Name of city, Name of State, Country. 

Examples:

Lincoln, F.C. 1930. Calculating waterfowl abundance on the basis of banding returns. U.S.D.A. Circ. No 118:1-4.

Reed, D. C., and S. C. Schroeder. 2006. An experimental investigation of the use of artificial reefs to     mitigate the loss of giant kelp forest habitat. California Sea Grant Program. Publication No. T-058. University of California, San Diego, California, USA.

Thesis

Last name, First initial. Second initial. Date. Title. Publication type, University, City, State, Country.

Example:

Wymore, A. 2009. Ecophysiology and metabolic shifts : the acute physiological effects of very low-carbohydrate high-protein diets. Thesis, California State University, Sacramento, California, USA.