How to format your references using the Journal of Zoology citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Mukhopadhyay, S. (2012). Early differentiation and volatile accretion recorded in deep-mantle neon and xenon. Nature 486, 101–104.
A journal article with 2 authors
Schwalb, N.K. & Temps, F. (2008). Base sequence and higher-order structure induce the complex excited-state dynamics in DNA. Science 322, 243–245.
A journal article with 3 authors
Bomfleur, B., McLoughlin, S. & Vajda, V. (2014). Fossilized nuclei and chromosomes reveal 180 million years of genomic stasis in royal ferns. Science 343, 1376–1377.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Ourjoumtsev, A., Tualle-Brouri, R., Laurat, J. & Grangier, P. (2006). Generating optical Schrödinger kittens for quantum information processing. Science 312, 83–86.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Hecht, J. (2008). Understanding Lasers. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
An edited book
Zhao, L. (2014). Cloud Data Management. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
A chapter in an edited book
Harpe, P., Hegt, H. & van Roermund, A. (2010). Smart DA Conversion. In Smart AD and DA Conversion: 19–40. Hegt, H. & Harpe, P. (Eds.). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

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 Zoology.

Blog post
Hale, T. (2016). These Guys Built Iron Man’s Laser Firing Gauntlet And Captain America’s Shield [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/technology/these-guys-built-iron-mans-laser-firing-gauntlet-and-captain-americas-shield/

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. (1976). An Experimental Computer Output Microfilm Service Center ( No. 092324). 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
Wright, C. (2010). A quantitative study of retirement knowledge among Spring 2009 Arizona high school graduates. Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ.

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. (2010). Pioneers Continue To Shepherd Women’s Basketball. New York Times B14.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Mukhopadhyay, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Schwalb & Temps, 2008; Mukhopadhyay, 2012).

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

  • Two authors: (Schwalb & Temps, 2008)
  • Three authors: (Bomfleur, McLoughlin & Vajda, 2014)
  • 4 or more authors: (Ourjoumtsev et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal titleJournal of Zoology
AbbreviationJ. Zool. (1987)
ISSN (print)0952-8369
ISSN (online)1469-7998
ScopeAnimal Science and Zoology
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

Other styles