How to format your references using the Zoological Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Zoological Letters. 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

1. Dye JL. Chemistry. Electrons as anions. Science. 2003;301:607–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Sagan SM, Sarnow P. Molecular biology. RNAi, Antiviral after all. Science. 2013;342:207–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Deng H, Gerencser AA, Jasper H. Signal integration by Ca(2+) regulates intestinal stem-cell activity. Nature. 2015;528:212–7.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Hu S, Chapin FS 3rd, Firestone MK, Field CB, Chiariello NR. Nitrogen limitation of microbial decomposition in a grassland under elevated CO2. Nature. 2001;409:188–91.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Wittcoff HA, Reuben BG, Plotkin JS. Industrial Organic Chemicals. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2012.

An edited book

1. Gupta SC, Prasad S, Aggarwal BB, editors. Anti-inflammatory Nutraceuticals and Chronic Diseases. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Dedov D. The Rule of Law and Legal State Doctrines as a Methodology of the Philosophy of Law. In: Silkenat JR, Hickey JE Jr, Barenboim PD, editors. The Legal Doctrines of the Rule of Law and the Legal State (Rechtsstaat). Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014. p. 61–9.

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 Zoological Letters.

Blog post

1. Hale T. Watch What Happens When You Fire A Ball At Sixty MPH Out Of A Truck Traveling Sixty MPH In The Opposite Direction [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/what-happens-when-you-fire-ball-out-cannon-travelling-opposite-way/. 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

1. Government Accountability Office. Illegal Alien Schoolchildren: Issues in Estimating State-by-State Costs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2004 Jun. Report No.: GAO-04-733.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Horaist DW. Estimating Seed Bank Responses to Changing Environmental Conditions in the Louisiana Coastal Zone [Doctoral dissertation]. [ Lafayette, LA]: University of Louisiana; 2015.

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

1. Sisario B. Weeknd’s ‘Starboy’ at No. 1 for Third Week. New York Times. 2017 Jan 23;C3.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Zoological Letters
Abbreviation	Zoological Lett.
ISSN (online)	2056-306X
Scope