How to format your references using the Vadose Zone Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Vadose Zone Journal. 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

Suomalainen, A. 2015. Stem cells: Asymmetric rejuvenation. Nature 521(7552): 296–298.

A journal article with 2 authors

Deane, G.B., and M.D. Stokes. 2002. Scale dependence of bubble creation mechanisms in breaking waves. Nature 418(6900): 839–844.

A journal article with 3 authors

Duplessy, J.C., D.M. Roche, and M. Kageyama. 2007. The deep ocean during the last interglacial period. Science 316(5821): 89–91.

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Wei, W., N.G. Ayad, Y. Wan, G.-J. Zhang, M.W. Kirschner, et al. 2004. Degradation of the SCF component Skp2 in cell-cycle phase G1 by the anaphase-promoting complex. Nature 428(6979): 194–198.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Benitez, M., J. Davidson, and L. Flaxman. 2009. Small Schools, Big Ideas. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, USA.

An edited book

Luca, A. de. 2013. Teoria degli Automi Finiti (F. D’Alessandro, editor). Springer, Milano.

A chapter in an edited book

Haines, A.J., L.L. Dimitrova, L.M. Wallace, and C.A. Williams. 2015. Application to Central South Island, New Zealand. In: Dimitrova, L.L., Wallace, L.M., and Williams, C.A., editors, Enhanced Surface Imaging of Crustal Deformation: Obtaining Tectonic Force Fields Using GPS Data. Springer International Publishing, Cham. p. 63–75

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 Vadose Zone Journal.

Blog post

Andrew, E. 2015. The Smell Of Rain: How CSIRO Invented A New Word. 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. 1990. Airline Competition: DOT and Justice Oversight of Eastern Air Lines’ Bankruptcy. 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

French, D.C. 2012. A Case against E-Waste: Where One Country’s Trash is (Not) Another Country’s Treasure: Developing National E-Waste Legislation to Regulate E-Waste Exportation.

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

Fausset, R., J. Eligon, J. Horowitz, and F. Robles. 2015. A Hectic Day at Church, and Then a Hellish Visitor. New York Times: A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Suomalainen, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Deane and Stokes, 2002; Suomalainen, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Deane and Stokes, 2002)
Three or more authors: (Wei et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Vadose Zone Journal
Abbreviation	Vadose Zone J.
ISSN (online)	1539-1663
Scope	Soil Science