A citation style is a uniform way to identify materials you reference in your work. There are many citation styles across academia as well as across the biology discipline.
For this course you will be using the format from the Ecological Society of America and the journal Ecology*.
Some things to know about this citation style:
Elements are separated by periods,
The first-listed author’s name, according to which the entry is alphabetized in the bibliography, is usually inverted (example: Squires, A., A. Anderson, and M. Kaproth)
Titles are capitalized headline-style;
titles of larger works (e.g., books and journals) are italicized;
titles of smaller works (e.g., chapters, articles) or unpublished works are presented in roman and enclosed in quotation marks.
Noun forms such as editor, translator, volume, and edition are abbreviated, but verb forms such as edited by and translated by—abbreviated in a note—are spelled out in a bibliography.
URLs: "As a general rule, any publication that has an ISSN or ISBN is acceptable but should be referenced by name (the URL may be added but is not essential)."
* Some instructors interpret style guides differently. Consult with your individual lab instructor regarding their expectations.
Citation help
Citations are tough to get right and it takes practice to get good at them. This is something that the MNSU Reference Librarians can help with!
There are a couple of online library resources that can help you create citations. These aren't perfect and need to be checked against the correct style guide, but they provide a good starting point.
MavScholar provides citations from within an individual search result. Look for the Citation tab, there are multiple styles available.
Some journals and databases also generate citations for you. Look for a Cite button.
