How to format your references using the Astrobiology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Astrobiology (AST). 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

Kreiter A. Science at the Sharp End of Oppressive Politics. Nature 2014;506(7487):133.

A journal article with 2 authors

Alley RB and Joughin I. Climate Change. Modeling Ice-Sheet Flow. Science 2012;336(6081):551–552.

A journal article with 3 authors

Srinivasan V, Pierik AJ and Lill R. Crystal Structures of Nucleotide-Free and Glutathione-Bound Mitochondrial ABC Transporter Atm1. Science 2014;343(6175):1137–1140.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Qingjiang L, Khiat A, Salaoru I, et al. Memory Impedance in TiO2 Based Metal-Insulator-Metal Devices. Sci Rep 2014;4:4522.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Saunders A and Allen L. Credit Risk Management in and Out of the Financial Crisis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ; 2010.

An edited book

Castelnuovo P. Surgical Anatomy of the Internal Carotid Artery: An Atlas for Skull Base Surgeons. (Dallan I and Tschabitscher M. eds). Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

Du S, Wu W, Song Y, et al. Superconducting Magnet. In: Tokamak Engineering Mechanics. (Wu W and Du S. eds). Mechanical Engineering Series Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg; 2014; pp. 159–201.

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 Astrobiology.

Blog post

Hale T. Enormous Green Meteor Caught On Camera Above California. IFLScience; 2016. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/check-out-green-meteor-light-above-california/ [Last accessed: 10/30/2018].

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. Continuing Educational Programs for Scientists and Engineers. U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC; 1978.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Cook MM. An Examination of the Proportion of Special Education Students in Single-Parent Homes in Comparison to Regular Education Students in Similar Households. Doctoral dissertation. Lindenwood University: St. Charles, MO; 2017.

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

Marx L. That Gravy Boat Has Sailed. New York Times 2015;ST10.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Kreiter, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Alley and Joughin, 2012; Kreiter, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Alley and Joughin, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Qingjiang et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Astrobiology
ISSN (print)	1531-1074
ISSN (online)	1557-8070
Scope