The Scientific Paper:  Literature Cited

This is the last section of the paper. Here you should provide an alphabetical listing of all the published work you cited in the text of the paper. This does not mean every article you found in your research; only include the works you actually cited in the text of your paper.

A standard format is used both to cite literature in the text and to list these studies in the Literature Cited section. Consult McMillan (1988) or a recent issue of Ecology for guidance. Hypothetical examples of the format used in the journal Ecology are below:

Djorjevic, M., D.W. Gabriel and B.G. Rolfe. 1987. Rhizobium: Refined parasite of legumes. Annual Review of Phytopathology 25: 145-168.

Jones, I. J. and B. J. Green. 1963. Inhibitory agents in walnut trees. Plant Physiology 70:101-152.

MacArthur, R.H. and E.O. Wilson. 1967. The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J.

Smith, E. A. 1949. Allelopathy in walnuts. American Journal of Botany 35:1066-1071.

Here is a dissection of the first entry, in the format for Ecology:  

Firstauthor, M., D.W. Secondauthor and B.G. Thirdauthor. Year. Article title with only the first letter capitalized. Journal Article Title with Important Words in Caps  volume#(issue# if there is one): firstpage-lastpage.

Notice some of the following details:  

- the list is alphabetized;
- no first or middle names are listed (the author's first and middle initials are used instead);
- only the first word in the title of the journal article (except for proper nouns) is capitalized;
- different journals use different styles for Literature Cited sections.  

You should pay careful attention to details of formatting when you write your own Literature Cited section. 

For papers published in journals you must provide the date, title, journal name, volume number, and page numbers. For books you need the publication date, title, publisher, and place of publication.

Permissible Citations In This Course (General Ecology, BIOL 307)

You are required to cite 8 sources from peer-reviewed scientific journals. We have provided you several references that you can access by electronic reserve. However, you must locate and cite at least 3 new references (in addition to the ones we provide). One of the sources can be from a text book or a scientific magazine such as Scientific American or Smithsonian. Note that magazine articles do not have the information organized into sections (e.g. abstract, introduction, methods, etc.). You cannot cite web sites unless they are peer-reviewed, archived online publications.

The Scientific Paper