How to format your references using the Journal of Vertebrate Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Vertebrate Biology. 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

Blobel G. 2013: Christian de Duve (1917-2013). Nature 498: 300.

A journal article with 2 authors

Straneo F. & Heimbach P. 2013: North Atlantic warming and the retreat of Greenland’s outlet glaciers. Nature 504: 36–43.

A journal article with 3 authors

Powner M.W. Gerland B. & Sutherland J.D. 2009: Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions. Nature 459: 239–242.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Pradillon F. Shillito B. Young C.M. & Gaill F. 2001: Deep-sea ecology. Developmental arrest in vent worm embryos. Nature 413: 698–699.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Center for Chemical Process Safety. 1993: Guidelines for Safe Automation of Chemical Processes. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Sun J.-Q. & Luo A.C.J., eds. 2012: Global Analysis of Nonlinear Dynamics. Springer. New York, NY. XIV, 287 p. 128 illus., 50 illus. in color pp.

A chapter in an edited book

Huebner A.R. Somparn P. Benjachat T. Leelahavanichkul A. Avihingsanon Y. Fenton R.A. & Pisitkun T. 2015: Exosomes in Urine Biomarker Discovery. In:Urine Proteomics in Kidney Disease Biomarker Discovery. Gao Y. ed., pp. 43–58. Springer Netherlands. Dordrecht.

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 Vertebrate Biology.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2015: How To Milk A Deadly Box Jellyfish. 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. 1978: Statistics on Congressional Reporting Requirements. 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

Butler-Roberts J. 2017: Fashioning distinction: construction of identity through dress and photography in nineteenth-century Paris. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach. Long Beach, CA.

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

Sisario B. 2016: Songwriters Challenge a Ruling on Licensing. New York Times: B2.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Blobel 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Blobel 2013. Straneo & Heimbach 2013).

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

Two authors: (Straneo & Heimbach 2013)
Three or more authors: (Pradillon et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Vertebrate Biology
ISSN (online)	2694-7684
Scope