How to format your references using the Italian Journal of Agronomy citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Italian Journal of Agronomy (IJA). 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

Koenig R, 2000. HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS: Bulgarians Sue CERN for Leniency. Science 290:252.

A journal article with 2 authors

Cheung GYC, Otto M, 2015. Microbiology: Diverted on the way to memory. Nature 517:28–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

Isakov SV, Melko RG, Hastings MB, 2012. Universal signatures of fractionalized quantum critical points. Science 335:193–5.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Zhang X, Beaulieu J-M, Sotnikova TD, Gainetdinov RR, Caron MG, 2004. Tryptophan hydroxylase-2 controls brain serotonin synthesis. Science 305:217.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hagen J, 2017. Chemiereaktoren. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany.

An edited book

Ley K (Ed), 2007. Adhesion Molecules: Function and Inhibition. Birkhäuser, Basel.

A chapter in an edited book

McFarlane PA, 2013. Intensive Hemodialysis in the Clinic and At Home. In: Azar AT (ed) Modelling and Control of Dialysis Systems: Volume 1: Modeling Techniques of Hemodialysis Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 167–233.

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 Italian Journal of Agronomy.

Blog post

Andrew E, 2014. Where Have The Stars Gone? IFLScience Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/missing-stars-confound-globular-cluster-formation-theories/

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, 2010. NASA: Medium Launch Transition Strategy Leverages Ongoing Investments but Is Not Without Risk. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Uzan E, 2017. Secondary Mathematics Pre-Service Teachers’ Processes of Selection and Integration of Technology. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

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

Vecsey G, 2011. Juventus, Tainted by a Scandal, Tries to Regain Its Luster. New York Times:B15.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Koenig, 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Koenig, 2000; Cheung and Otto, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Cheung and Otto, 2015)
Three or more authors: (Zhang et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Italian Journal of Agronomy
Abbreviation	Ital. J. Agron.
ISSN (print)	1125-4718
ISSN (online)	2039-6805
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences