How to format your references using the GSA Today citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for GSA Today. 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 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

Arnold, F.H., 2001, Combinatorial and computational challenges for biocatalyst design: Nature, v. 409, p. 253–257.

A journal article with 2 authors

Abouheif, E., and Wray, G.A., 2002, Evolution of the gene network underlying wing polyphenism in ants: Science (New York, N.Y.), v. 297, p. 249–252.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ma, J.-B., Ye, K., and Patel, D.J., 2004, Structural basis for overhang-specific small interfering RNA recognition by the PAZ domain: Nature, v. 429, p. 318–322.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Schmeing, T.M., Huang, K.S., Strobel, S.A., and Steitz, T.A., 2005, An induced-fit mechanism to promote peptide bond formation and exclude hydrolysis of peptidyl-tRNA: Nature, v. 438, p. 520–524.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rassool, G.H., 2010, Addiction for Nurses: Oxford, UK, Wiley-Blackwell.

An edited book

Hollo, E.J., Kulovesi, K., and Mehling, M. (Eds.), 2013, Climate Change and the Law: Dordrecht, Springer Netherlands, Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, v. 21, XXI, 693 p. 4 illus., 1 illus. in color p.

A chapter in an edited book

Sehgal, D., and Raina, S.N., 2011, Carthamus, in Kole, C. ed., Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources: Oilseeds, Berlin, Heidelberg, Springer, p. 63–95.

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 GSA Today.

Blog post

Carpineti, A., 2017, Atmospheric Winds Could Help Us Study The Magnetic Field Of Exoplanets: IFLScience,.

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, 1977, Survey of Pricing on NASA Contract: U.S. Government Printing Office 912452.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Samel, C., 2014, Imagination and negotiation: Motivations for Cambodian women to marry Cambodian American men [Doctoral dissertation]: California State University, Long Beach.

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

Hodgman, J., 2017, Bonus Advice From Judge John Hodgman: New York Times, p. MM22.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Arnold, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Arnold, 2001; Abouheif and Wray, 2002).

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

Two authors: (Abouheif and Wray, 2002)
Three or more authors: (Schmeing et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	GSA Today
Abbreviation	GSA Today
ISSN (print)	1052-5173
Scope	Geology