Question 2a
To double-check the formatting of the citation elements:
Citation styles differ from one another in many small details of formatting. Be sure that the format and punctuation of each element of the citation follows the example in the Bio 1B Library Help Guide: Citation style for the Bio 1B Research Skills assignment.
- Author name(s): In BioScience citation style, should be formatted:
Last/family name(s)[space]First Initial[no space]Middle Initial(s)
There should be no comma between the author's last name and their initial(s), and there should be no space between the initials. Each author name is separated from the next by a comma and a space, and the list of authors ends with a period.
If you have trouble identifying the parts of an author's name, in BIOSIS Previews records names are formatted in the following way:
Last or family name(s)[comma][space]First/given name or initial[space]Middle name(s) or initials
Semicolons separate author names, and the last author's name is followed by a period. Please note that this is not the citation format required by the assignment.
For articles with ten authors or fewer, the names are listed in the order given, and followed by a period:
Example: Smith RF, Alexander LC, Lamp WO.
For articles with more than ten authors, only the first author name is listed followed by a comma and the phrase et al.
Example: Mueller GM, et al.
Be careful not to change the order of the names. In the life sciences, the order of the author names is often important, and can indicate the role of a particular author in the research.
- Publication year: Does not include the month or day, and should be followed by a period.
Example: 2001.
- Article title: The first word, proper nouns, and the first word after a colon should be capitalized, and the title should end with a period unless it ends with another form of punctuation such as a question mark or exclamation point.
Example: Dispersal by terrestrial stages of stream insects in urban watersheds: A synthesis of current knowledge.
- Journal name: Not all journal names begin with the phrase "Journal of." Transcribe the journal name exactly as it appears in the BIOSIS Previews record, but omit the city of publication if it is given in parentheses after the name. No period follows the journal name.
Example: Nature
- Volume and issue number: The volume number is followed by a colon:
Example: 9:
In the sciences most journals have pages that are numbered continuously. Issue 1 might include the pages 1 - 126, while issue 2 might include the pages 127 - 254, and issue 3 the pages 255 - 382, etc. So the issue number is omitted in many scientific citation styles, including the style used in the Bio 1B Research Skills Assignment, because the volume and page numbers alone enable you to find the cited article. In other disciplines some journals may be paginated by issue, with each issue beginning with page 1. When citing such a journal it is important to include the issue number in the citation, because the volume and page numbers alone may be ambiguous.
- Page numbers or Article number (e-only): Both the starting and (if available) ending page numbers should be given in full, separated by a hyphen. Article numbers should be transcribed exactly as they appear in BIOSIS Previews. The citation element ends in a period:
Example (page numbers): 1022-1037.
Example (article number): e1003428. (Note: Not all article numbers begin with "e".)
If you have carefully checked the formatting of your citation elements against the examples and you still can't spot a problem, copy and paste the incorrect citation elements into an email and send it to bios-library@berkeley.edu. Please let us know what Assignment Set you are working on.
The Literature Review limit doesn't appear under Refine Results in the left-hand column.
Be sure that you have scrolled to the bottom of the Refine Results column are looking under the Literature Types category; see Finding Literature Reviews in BIOSIS
If the Literature Types category doesn't appear, you may be in a different database than BIOSIS Previews on the Web of Science platform. To return to BIOSIS Previews:
- Go to the Search page by clicking on the Search button at the top left of your results page.
- Using the drop-down menu next to Search in:, choose BIOSIS Previews.
- Repeat the search.
Once you're searching in BIOSIS Previews and not another selection you should see Literature Types towards the bottom of the left-hand Refine Results column.
When I click on the BIOSIS Previews link on the Bioscience Library home page I get a "System Error" message.
This happens when you have an expired cookie. Clear your browser cache, cookies and history until before the last time you accessed BIOSIS Previews from the assignment link. Close the browser, reopen it, log back in to the assignment, and see if the link now works.
If the link still doesn't work, access BIOSIS using a different browser (Safari or Firefox if you've been using Chrome, for example). Firefox and Chrome are free downloads.
Question 2b
To double-check the full citation:
Make sure that you've kept the formatting and punctuation of the elements from Question 2a intact when you created the citation in Question 2b:
- Completely delete everything you entered in the answer box in Question 2b, including all blank spaces
- Copy and paste each correct citation element from Question 2a into the answer box in Question 2b
- Be sure that the order of the citation elements is correct; see the Citation style for the Bio 1B Research Skills assignment
- Check also to make sure that you have the proper spacing between the elements.
If you have carefully checked the formatting of your citation against the example and you still can't spot a problem, copy and paste your full citation into an email and send it to bios-library@berkeley.edu. Please let us know what Assignment Set you are working on.
