How To Use CSE Citation Style In Text Formatting

The CSE Citation Style

It is important to cite the original source when using a quotation, data, image or idea that is not originally your own. Failure to citing your sources constitutes to plagiarism. The Council of Science Editors (CSE) style is a standard citation style used across many disciplines in the physical and life sciences. The CSE style encompasses three systems:

• Name-Year: In-text citations appear in brackets, and consist of the author(s) last name, as well as the document’s year of publication (e.g. Smith 2008). The end reference list appears in alphabetical order by author last name.
• Citation-Sequence: A superscript number (e.g. 1) is assigned to a document the first time it appears in the text, and the same number is used whenever that work is cited. The references in the reference list are listed numerically in the order in which they first appeared in the text.
• Citation-Name: All references organized alphabetically by author last name, and assigned a number according to their order in the list. This number is then inserted in the text in superscript font (e.g. 1) wherever the work is cited.

General CSE Rules

• Only include references that have been cited in the body of the paper should be included.
• Organization: In the N-Y system, entries are listed in alphabetical order by the name of the first author’s last name (or, if there is no known author, by organization name or by the title of the work). The year is placed after the last author’s name, followed by a period.
• Authors’ names - List authors’ last names, followed by initials for first and middle names. Do not use periods or spaces between the initials. Do not use a comma between the last name and the initials, e.g., Smith BL. Include all authors’ names if a work has up to ten authors; for a work with eleven or more authors, list the first ten names followed by a comma and "et al.” (which means "and others”).
• For works with two authors, do not use "and” or "&” to separate the authors’ names.
• Multiple citations by same author: If you are citing more than one item by the same author(s), list works in chronological order (oldest first).
• Organization/group as author: Put the abbreviation of the group name in square brackets so you can use it in your in-text citation. The abbreviation should appear as the first part of the citation in the end reference, e.g., [CLA] Canadian Lung Association.
• Formatting titles: Do not italicize or underline the titles of books or journals.
• Titles of books and articles: Only the first letter of the title’s first word and any proper nouns should be capitalized. Do not enclose article titles in quotation marks.
• Titles of journals: Abbreviate the titles of any journals that consist of more than one word. Omit articles, conjunctions, and prepositions (e.g., the, and, of). Do not use apostrophes. Capitalize all the words or abbreviated words in the title.

In-text Citations

• Be sure that every in-text citation has a corresponding entry in the reference list. (Exception: personal communications)
• In-text citations (also known as parenthetical references) include the author's last name and year of the reference without a comma, e.g., (Smith 2011).
• If there is no author, include the first word(s) of the title (enough to identify the source) followed by an ellipsis (...), e.g., (Biological research … 2007)
• For 2 authors, list both last names in the in-text citation separated by "and” (NOT an ampersand "&”), e.g., (Haggarty and Gaynor 2008)