Ecology Format

There are several different citation "styles." Each one has its own manual or handbook of guidelines describing the proper way to format a paper or other type of written work for publication. You may be familiar with APA or MLA. Ecology is the style preferred by the professors teaching Bio 160. Be sure to use the style required by your instructor.

Ecology style refers to the citation format established by the Ecological Society of America. The best way to determine the appropriate format is to look a recent copy of the journal Ecology.

As you write your assignment or paper, you'll be using information that you obtained from other sources and integrating it into your work. When you use someone else's words or ideas (or their pictures, charts, etc.) in your work, you must give credit to that author by citing the original source of the information.

Each source that you cite in your paper will need to be listed in two ways:

•  In the text or body of your paper, an "in-text" citation
   This is a very brief mention of the original information source. Often, the in-text citation includes just the author's last name and the year of publication.

• At the end of your paper
  This is a complete description of the original source, which becomes part of a "Literature Cited" list or bibliography. Each reference should provide the title of the original document, the author's name, and enough other information about it so that someone would be able to locate the item, should they want to read it. Follow this link for an example.