How to format your references using the Systematic Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Systematic 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	Download the output style file
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

O’Meara S. 2015. At the very heart of progress. Nature. 528:S179-81.

A journal article with 2 authors

Meldrum D.R., Holl M.R. 2002. Tech.Sight. Microfluidics. Microscale bioanalytical systems. Science. 297:1197–1198.

A journal article with 3 authors

Oganov A.R., Brodholt J.P., Price G.D. 2001. The elastic constants of MgSiO3 perovskite at pressures and temperatures of the Earth’s mantle. Nature. 411:934–937.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Rogaev E.I., Grigorenko A.P., Faskhutdinova G., Kittler E.L.W., Moliaka Y.K. 2009. Genotype analysis identifies the cause of the “royal disease.” Science. 326:817.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Furger C. 2016. Live Cell Assays. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Brand M. van D., Gašević D., Gray J., editors. 2010. Software Language Engineering: Second International Conference, SLE 2009, Denver, CO, USA, October 5-6, 2009, Revised Selected Papers. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Yu L., Liu X., Petinakis E., Dean K., Bateman S. 2013. Starch Based Blends, Composites and Nanocomposites. In: Thomas S., Visakh P.M., Mathew A.P., editors. Advances in Natural Polymers: Composites and Nanocomposites. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. p. 121–154.

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 Systematic Biology.

Blog post

Fang J. 2015. 34-Million-Year-Old Fossils Link Penguin Brain Evolution With Underwater Flight. Available from https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/34-million-year-old-fossils-link-penguin-brain-evolution-underwater-flight/.

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. 2003. Commercial Aviation: Issues Regarding Federal Assistance for Enhancing Air Service to Small Communities. .

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gjelaj Merturi E. 2010. The Perceptions of Principal-Based Leadership Practices on Student Reading Achievement. .

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

Victor D. 2017. Dehydration Death at Jail Is Scrutinized. New York Times.:A13.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (O’Meara 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Meldrum and Holl 2002; O’Meara 2015).

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

Two authors: (Meldrum and Holl 2002)
Three or more authors: (Rogaev et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	Systematic Biology
Abbreviation	Syst. Biol.
ISSN (print)	1063-5157
ISSN (online)	1076-836X
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics Genetics