Guidelines for References

Overview: All citations in the text, figures, tables, and other supporting parts of the manuscript must be in the reference list and vice versa. References are a very important part of your paper. Please do your best to make them as complete and as compliant with our style as possible. Our goal is that when a reader sees Zhang et al. (2010b), they will know that in the reference cited list this will be in Z's for Zhang, then after 2010a -- it is very logical, very quick.

Submitting your manuscript with properly formatted references and correct in-text citations will speed up the editorial process. If they are a mess, your manuscript may be sent back for correction, even after acceptance. Likewise if our automated reference-checking program generates a large list of problems, then you will be asked to make corrections.

Quick tips-- What helps the Editorial office the most:

1. Complete information, such as publisher name, location, page numbers as appropriate, etc.
2. No abbreviations of journal titles, material source, etc.
3. Alphabetical order (chronological order for three or more authors; first author’s last name, first initial is all that matters for order).
4. Note: there is no italic/bold in our style.
5. Do not use references from Wikipedia; these are not permitted.
6. Watch this quick two minute video on references: Click Here
7. A paper still being written is called out in text: Smith et al. in preparation.
8. A paper still in peer review at a journal: Smith et al. in review. (These are discouraged and if used should be explained in cover letter. Be prepared to provide material or further information. The best use of these is when you are pretty confident it will be "in press" when/if revisions are created, as a placeholder so to speak.)
9. A paper accepted but not scheduled for an issue: Smith et al. 2015 (use year in text and "in press" as the page/volume part in the reference list).

Ordering References

There are 2 basic things to look for when putting references in order:

1. Last name of first author in the list -- first make the list alphabetical
2. Then where the last name is the same for multiple references, sort chronologically, keeping solo works together, then keeping doubleton works together, then multi-author works together:
   
   Here are examples, in the correct format and order:
   • Andreozzi, G.B. (2002)
   • Andreozzi, G.B., and Lucchesi, S. (2002)
   • Andreozzi, G.B., and Princivalle, F. (2002)
   • Andreozzi, G.B., Princivalle, F., Skogby, H., and Della Giusta, A. (2000)
   • Andreozzi, G.B., Lucchesi, S., Skogby, H., and Della Giusta, A. (2001)
   Solo works first by same author: All the solo works by same author clump together, chronologically.
   
   • Smith, J. (2000)
   • Smith, J. (2001)
   Doubletons (Duo) authors: All duos with same first author clump together after the solo works and before the multi-authors. Since there are two "Zhang" papers, they go in chronological order in the clump of doubleton's.
   
   • Smith, J., and Brown, S. (2010)
   • Smith, J., and Zhang, T. (2010)
   • Smith, J., and Zhang, T. (2011)
   Multi-authors are chronological, in their clump: Note that a and b are added to differentiate the two 2001 papers.
   
   • Andreozzi, G.B., Princivalle, F., Skogby, H., and Della Giusta, A. (2000)
   • Andreozzi, G.B., Lucchesi, S., Skogby, H., and Della Giusta, A. (2001a)
   • Andreozzi, G.B., Lucchesi, S., Princivalle, F., and Della Giusta, A. (2001b)

Formatting

• All authors in the references must be listed by: last name, followed by initials (with a comma between, i.e., Jones, H.); exception: when citing an article from a volume with editors, the Editors (Eds.) are listed by initials first, i.e., In G. Washington, Ed., Book/Volume title.
• Journal names are fully spelled out. This is the most common and most tedious mistake to fix. It is most important that the reader be able to find the reference.
• Book titles follow "Initial Caps" format, e.g., The History of Rocks
• Journal titles and chapter titles, use "Sentence case," meaning capitalize the first word, proper nouns, etc., e.g., Eruptions of St. Mary's volcano through the ages; A study of Pb minerals.
• No spaces between initials (Jones, D.H.)
• Suffixes, such as Jr. and III, go after the initials, with a space (Bosworth, M.R. Jr.)
• Year in parentheses, with no colons, commas, or other punctuation e.g., (1998)
• No parts of the reference are italicized, boldface, or underlined, unless it is part of a title (rare).
• Issue numbers are only needed when the pages start at 1 for each issue, which is rare.
• Note references in languages other than English by adding: "(in Japanese)" as appropriate
• For articles In press: List the title, authors, journal name, DOI if you have it, and "in press," cite them as published works.
• In cases where the same author(s) have references from the same year, differentiate them in the list and citations by adding lowercase letters; e.g., Smith et al. 2000a, 200b; Donner 1965a, 1965b.
• In cases where sequential references have identical author lists are replaced by 3 m-dashes, e.g., two references by "Smith and Dymek", the second instance in the list would be replaced by 3 dashes so as to not repeat in the list. If you see this change on your proofs, don't worry! (And don't bother marking it...it is our style.)
• If there are significantly more than 10 authors, then after the 10th author put "and others."
• Doppelgangers: if the last name is the same but the authors are not the same individual, sort chronologically to aid the reader: i.e., Smith, J. (2010) comes after Smith, T. (1999).

Citations

• Solo works: Smith (2010)
• Duo works: Tennant and Smith (1998)
• 3+ authors, use “et al.” (Smith et al. 1990)
• Semi-colon between citations with different authors (Smith et al. 1999; Jones 1929)
• Commas between citations with the same last name(s) (Conway and Dymek 1980, 1984) or Jones et al. (1988, 1994). Note: The two Jones may have completely different authors, it doesn't matter because the reader will be able to quickly find them both chronologically.
• Omit any reference from the list that is not published (including papers in review or preparation). Cite them in the text by last name followed by "personal communication", "in preparation" or "unpublished manuscript(data,etc.)." Year is optional in this case.

CSL style may help: We have a brand new listing in CitationStyles.org – if you keep your references in a citation database and apply styles depending on where you submit, in theory you should now be able to apply our style. (If you don’t keep a citation database and have no idea what any of this means, don’t worry about it.) Here are some links of possible information and help about CSL:

• Here is our style: https://zotero.org/styles?q=American%20Mineralogist
• Here is the style repository info: http://citationstyles.org/styles/style-repository/
• Here is a Zotero youtube info for authors: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtcvgL-XFDE
• Here is a Zotero and Word youtube help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8gaG59rr9M
• From the CitationStyles library our style should gradually become available via any of those programs; but we can only promise Zotero.

Note about URLs: We do not recommend using URLs as they often change. It may be crucial that the reader sees what you saw on the date of access (instead of the updated info one or five or fifty years later) (if the link even still works). In the interest of preservation, if an URL is needed, then try using "WebCite" to create an archived version of the website. Cite it like this: (http://www. webcitation.org/6MiPbLEbu, accessed Feb. 10, 2012).

If you must use an URL in a reference, then include: title of site/material, host of site, date accessed the site, and anything else useful. Otherwise consider something such as a footnote or parentheses: (Smith et al. Database of Rocks, Univ. of Earth Database, accessed Aug. 8, 2012). The citing of databases is still a work in progress for best practices but please do give credit to the authors of the data. It has been also recommended that in addition to a link to the data itself, a reference to the article about the data is included.

Examples of Reference Types

Journal articles:

Jakobsen, H.J., Nielsen, N.C., and Lindgreen, H. (1995) Sequences of charged sheets in rectorite. American Mineralogist, 80, 247–252.

Journal articles (in press):

Jakobsen, H.J., Nielsen, N.C., and Lindgreen, H. (2015) Sequences of charged sheets in rectorite. American Mineralogist, in press.

Thesis/dissertation:

Hildreth, E.W. (1977) The magma chamber of the Bishop Tuff: Gradients in temperature, pressure and composition, 328 p. Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley.

General Books:

Smith, J. (1969) The secret life of rebellious rocks, 432 p. Wiley, New York.

Born, M., and Huang, J. (1954) The Dynamical Theory of Crystal Lattices, 420 p. Clarendon, Oxford.

Books in a series or with editors:


Smith, J., Ed. (1969) Our Rock Group, 2nd ed., 1002 p. Wiley, New York.

Doe, J. (1990) Phase transition in leucite. In E.K.H. Salje, Ed., Phase Transition in Ferroelastic Crystals, p. 330-334. Cambridge University Press, U.K.

Chapter in MSA’s Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry:

Finger, L.W., and Hazen, R.M. (2000) Systematics of high-pressure silicate structures. In R.M. Hazen and R.T. Downs, Eds., High-Temperature and High-Pressure Crystal Chemistry, 41, p. 123-156. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, Mineralogical Society of America, Chantilly, Virginia.

Short form also acceptable: Finger, L.W., and Hazen, R.M. (2000) Systematics of high-pressure silicate structures. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 41, 123-156.

How to cite data or a database:

Ralchenko, Y., Kramida, A.E., Reader, J., and NIST ASD Team (2011) NIST Atomic Spectra Database (ver. 4.1.0) (Online). Available: http://physics.nist.gov/asd (accessed February 15, 2012). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Conference proceedings:

Smith, J. (1971) The truth of rocks in Florida. In B. Jones and C. Doe, Eds., Proceedings of the third conference on Florida rocks, p. 224-228. Mineralogical Society of Florida, Miami.

Non-English references:

Born, M., and Huang, J. (1954) The Dynamical Theory of Crystal Lattices, 420 p. Clarendon, Oxford (in Japanese).

Secondary reference:

Innocenti, M., Lattanzi, P., and Tanelli, G. (1984) Mineralogy and environment of formation of the Cu-Pb-Zn (Ag, Sb, As) mineralizations of the Niccioleta deposit. Rendiconti della Società Italiana di Mineralogia e Petrologia, 39, 657–667 (not seen; extracted from American Mineralogist, 71, 231, 1986).

Translation:

Nogarko, L.N. and Gulyayeva, L.A. (1965) Geochemistry of the halogens in alkalic rocks of the Lovozero massif (Kola peninsula). Geochemistry International, 2, 729–740 (translated from Geokhimiya, 8, 1011–1024, 1965).