How to format your references using the Acta Ornithologica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Ornithologica. 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.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeXBibTeX styles 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
Liechty J. 2012. Scientists and bankers - a new model army. Nature 484: 143.
A journal article with 2 authors
Li W., Chetelat R. T. 2010. A pollen factor linking inter- and intraspecific pollen rejection in tomato. Science 330: 1827–1830.
A journal article with 3 authors
Geremia J. M., Stockton J. K., Mabuchi H. 2004. Real-time quantum feedback control of atomic spin-squeezing. Science 304: 270–273.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Khazipov R., Sirota A., Leinekugel X., Holmes G. L., Ben-Ari Y., Buzsáki G. 2004. Early motor activity drives spindle bursts in the developing somatosensory cortex. Nature 432: 758–761.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Kerzner H. 2015. Project Management 2.0. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Witzany G. (ed). 2012. Biocommunication of Fungi. Springer Netherlands.
A chapter in an edited book
Britto M. R., Sarapa N. 2016. Clinical QTc Assessment in Oncology. In: Bonate P. L., Howard D. R. (eds). Pharmacokinetics in Drug Development: Problems and Challenges in Oncology, Volume 4. Springer International Publishing, pp. 77–106.

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 Acta Ornithologica.

Blog post
Andrew D. 2017. IFLScience. Available at: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/five-common-myths-about-the-ageing-brain-and-body/.

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. 1976. Legality of the Reported Use by the Energy Research and Development Administration of Certain Fossil Energy Funds for Contracts.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Karasik B. A. 2015. Tele-collaboration in theatre: Collaboration mgmt tools in a digital and globalized age. California State University, Long Beach, . Long Beach, CA.

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
Greenhouse L. 2006. Curb on Access to News In Prison Gets Hearing. New York Times A14.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Liechty, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Li & Chetelat, 2010; Liechty, 2012).

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

  • Two authors: (Li & Chetelat, 2010)
  • Three or more authors: (Khazipov et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal titleActa Ornithologica
ISSN (print)0001-6454
ISSN (online)1734-8471
Scope

Other styles