Citation styles are guidelines and conventions that disciplines and publications follow to
present writing and sources in a consistent way.
You might have used APA or MLA before, but in this class, you’ll be using the citation
style for a particular journal called Ecology.
Let’s say you’re a scientist who wants
to publish a study about habitat selection
in animals.
Before you submit a draft of your paper to
this journal, they ask you to format your
document including tables, figures, and citations or Literature Cited in a particular way.
Regardless of style, there are two main components of a citation.
First, when you reference another source,
include an in-text citation in the body of
your paper.
In Ecology Style, this citation typically
includes the author’s last name and the
year in parentheses.
If there are two authors, use the word “and.”
If there are more than three authors, include the first author’s last name, then use the
abbreviation et al., which means “and others.”
Then, include a complete citation in a bibliography list called Literature Cited at the end of
your paper.
Your in-text and Literature Cited citations
should match.
Use a hanging indent and organize your bibliography alphabetically by an author's last name.
This helps your readers skim through the list to find the full citation from the in-text
citation.
A full citation typically includes the author, the date, the title of the work, and the source,
or information about where you can get it,
including any URLs or other links.
In this style, each part of the citation is
separated with a period.
The format of these citations vary based on the type of source you’re citing and the
information available.
You can look at examples of Literature Cited in articles published in Ecology, or use an
online citation guide with more examples.
In this class, you’ll probably be citing
a lot of academic journal articles.
First, include the last names and initials
of the authors.
Use the word “and” before the last author.
Then include the year the article was published.
Next, include the title of the article in
sentence case.
This means only the first word of the title
and subtitle, and any proper nouns are capitalized.
After that, include the academic journal where the article was published.
Academic journals typically publish collections of articles throughout the year in volumes.
Include the volume number colon and the page range, if there is one.
Finally, include the DOI, or digital object
identifier, if it’s available, in brackets.
This is a direct link to the article on the
publisher’s site.
Ecology style is similar to APA, but doesn’t include italics and uses different punctuation.
Formatting citations and your paper can require some attention to detail.
If you’re not sure how to cite a source
using Ecology Style, ask a librarian!
