How to format your references using the Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition. 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

Gaherty JB (2001) Seismic evidence for hotspot-induced buoyant flow beneath the Reykjanes Ridge. Science 293:1645–1647

A journal article with 2 authors

Pelton JN, Logsdon J (2008) Retrospective. Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008). Science 320:189

A journal article with 3 authors

Reyes N, Ginter C, Boudker O (2009) Transport mechanism of a bacterial homologue of glutamate transporters. Nature 462:880–885

A journal article with 15 or more authors

Musser RO, Hum-Musser SM, Eichenseer H, Peiffer M, Ervin G, Murphy JB, Felton GW (2002) Herbivory: caterpillar saliva beats plant defences. Nature 416:599–600

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Vaseghi SV (2001) Advanced Digital Signal Processing and Noise Reduction. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Peris-Ortiz M, Ferreira JJ, Farinha L, Fernandes NO (eds) (2016) Multiple Helix Ecosystems for Sustainable Competitiveness. Springer International Publishing, Cham

A chapter in an edited book

Orringer MB (2015) Transhiatal Esophagectomy—Intraoperative Disasters. In: Pawlik TM, Maithel SK, Merchant NB (eds) Gastrointestinal Surgery: Management of Complex Perioperative Complications. Springer, New York, NY, pp 35–51

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 Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J (2017) Why The Man Behind The New Horizons Mission Wants Pluto To Be A Planet Again. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/why-the-man-behind-the-new-horizons-mission-wants-pluto-to-be-a-planet-again/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1986) The Status of Telecommunications Efforts in the General Accounting Office. 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

Ratzlaff K (2012) Dynamics of chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) infection in amphibians in the Rincon Mountains and Tucson, Arizona. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona

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

Saslow L (2007) LIPA Ponders Fate of Wind Farm as Costs Rise. New York Times LI2

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Gaherty 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Gaherty 2001; Pelton and Logsdon 2008).

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

Two authors: (Pelton and Logsdon 2008)
Three or more authors: (Musser et al. 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition
ISSN (print)	0718-9508
ISSN (online)	0718-9516
Scope