How to format your references using the American Journal of Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for American Journal of Science (AJS). 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	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX 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

Chait, B. T., 2006, Chemistry. Mass spectrometry: bottom-up or top-down? Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 314, p. 65–66.

A journal article with 2 authors

Doyle, J., and Csete, M., 2007, Rules of engagement: Nature, v. 446, p. 860.

A journal article with 3 authors

Didenko, Y. T., McNamara, W. B., 3rd, and Suslick, K. S., 2000, Molecular emission from single-bubble sonoluminescence: Nature, v. 407, p. 877–879.

A journal article with 15 or more authors

Takahashi, K., Kanno, T., Sakai, A., Tamaki, H., Kusada, H., and Yamada, Y., 2013, Bifunctional thermoelectric tube made of tilted multilayer material as an alternative to standard heat exchangers: Scientific reports, v. 3, p. 1501.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Silvapulle, M. J., and Sen, P. K., 2001, Constrained Statistical Inference: Inequality, Order, and Shape Restrictions: Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Sharvit, K., and Halperin, E., editors, 2016, A Social Psychology Perspective on The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Celebrating the Legacy of Daniel Bar-Tal, Vol II: Peace Psychology Book Series, Springer International Publishing, Cham, XIV, 287 p. 7 illus., 6 illus. in color p.

A chapter in an edited book

Thornalley, P. J., and Rabbani, N., 2011, Thiamine in Diabetic Renal Disease: Dietary Insufficiency, Renal Washout, Antistress Gene Response, Therapeutic Supplements, Risk Predictor, and Link to Genetic Susceptibility, in Miyata, T., Eckardt, K.-U., and Nangaku, M. eds., Studies on Renal Disorders: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, p. 93–104.

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 American Journal of Science.

Blog post

Taub, B., 2016, New Alzheimer’s Drug Could Be The Breakthrough We’ve Been Waiting For, accessed October 30, 2018, at IFLScience at https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/new-alzheimers-drug-could-breakthrough-weve-been-waiting-for/.

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, 1995, Space Station: Estimated Total U.S. Funding Requirements: U.S. Government Printing Office NSIAD-95-163.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Taboada-Peña, R., 2017, A Self-Empowering Holistic Art-Based Model Designed to Promote Emotional Well-Being, Coping Skills, and Self-Esteem in Youth:

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

Burghardt, L. F., 2006, An Animal Sanctuary Is Under Pressure to Move: New York Times, p. 14LI6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Chait, 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Chait, 2006; Doyle and Csete, 2007).

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

Two authors: (Doyle and Csete, 2007)
Three or more authors: (Takahashi and others, 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	American Journal of Science
Abbreviation	Am. J. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0002-9599
ISSN (online)	1945-452x
Scope	General Earth and Planetary Sciences