Penn State University Libraries - CSE Quick Citation Guide

Here are some examples of common citation formats in CSE Style (Council of Science Editors, formally called the CBE Council of Biology Editors). For complete citation information, see Scientific Style and Format: the CSE manual for authors, editors and publishers. For additional examples of the use of CSE style see the Research and Documentation Online guide.

Note: the CSE style describes three options for references; use the style which is commonly used in your discipline:

• Citation-Sequence (C-S) system which uses numbers within the text to refer to the end references which are listed in the order they are referred to in the text. Subsequent citations to the same document use the same number as its initial citation:
   
  In text example: Modern scientific nomenclature really began with Linnaeus in botany¹, but other disciplines²,³ were not many years behind in developing various systems^4-7 for nomenclature and symbolization
   
  
• Citation-Name (C-N) system which uses numbers within the text to refer to the end references which are listed alphabetically by author and then by title.:
  
  In text example: Modern scientific nomenclature really began with Linnaeus in botany⁴, but other discipline¹,⁵ were not many years behind in developing various systems^2-3,⁶,¹⁰ for nomenclature and symbolization
   
  
• Name-Year (N-Y) system which uses the surname of the author and the year of publication to refer to the end references which are then listed alphabetically by author and then by year:
   
  In text example: By contrast, the several antisera that have been raised against Sp1, a defined RNA polymerase II transcription factor (Kadonaga 1986), stain exclusively the nucleus . . .
   

General Principles for Formatting End References

In the C-S and C-N systems, the general sequence of information in a reference is author name, title, and additional items (including year of publication).

In the N-Y system, author names are followed by the year of publication; all the other items then follow in the same sequence (except for the year).

Author names with initials are recommended for reference lists that also include references to journal articles, for which names with initials are preferred. When there are 2-10 authors, all should be named; if more than 10 authors, list the first 10 followed by “and others”.

Note: throughout CSE style, no commas are used to offset the author's last name from his or her initials, no space separates the first and middle initial, and periods do not, in general, follow initials.

Note: in CSE style, titles of periodicals (newspapers, journals, magazines) are capitalized as they normally are; book titles and article titles have only the first word of the title (and of any subtitles), as well as proper nouns, capitalized. Obvious exceptions are capitalized abbreviations and symbols (e.g., HIV-1, DDAVP, pH).

General Principles for Formatting In-Text References

In-text references should immediately follow the title, word, or phrase to which they are directly relevant, rather than appearing at the end of long clauses or sentences. In-text references should always precede punctuation marks.

In the N-Y system use the following guidelines for in-text citation:

One author: (Field 2005)
Two authors: (Gass and Varonis 1984)
More than two authors: (Munro et al. 2006)

No author: If the author of a work cannot be determined use the title (for long titles use the first few words followed by an elipsis):
Top fields of study for international students are business and engineering, followed by physical and life sciences, math and computer science, and social sciences (Open Doors 2010).

No date: For online sources if the publication year cannot be determined use the year of access. For print sources use [date unknown]:
(Smith [date unknown])

Note: If you mention the author in the running text of your paper, include only the year in the parenthetical citation:
This conclusion is supported by Rubin and Smith (1990), who found that...

 
Examples

Important Elements:

• Author (last name and initials only for first & middle names)
• Title (capitalize only the first word of title and subtitle, and proper nouns)
• Place of publication
• Publisher
• Publication date
• Number of pages
  
  

Important Elements:

• Author (last name, initials only for first & middle names.  List all names for up to 10 authors, if more than 10 list the first author and then “et al.” or “and others”)
• Title of article (capitalize only the first word of title and subtitle, and proper nouns)
• Title of publication abbreviated (if possible use ISO abbreviations used by PubMed)
• Date of publication of article (year only for scholarly journals; year and month for magazines; year, month and day for daily or newspapers publications)
• Volume and issue number
  
• Page numbers of article
  
  

In the CSE format, the basic rules for citing do not differ for internet items from what is required for print.  Simply listing a URL is not sufficient; all the publication information should also be listed.

Online Articles and Books

Important Elements:

• All of the publication information (see Print information, above)
• Add [Internet] after the article or book title.
• Add [date cited] after date of publication
• Add Available from: url after pages
  
  

Important Elements:

• Title of web site
• Place of publication and publisher
• Date of publication and date of last update (if relevant)
• Date you accessed the information (date cited)
• URL (Web address) of the site
  
  

In CSE style, interviews and other forms of unpublished personal communication, such as e-mail, letters, or memos, are not included in the reference list. Cite interviews and personal communication in parentheses within the text of your paper.