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No matter what style is used, all citations generally contain the same information. This info may be in a different order or be formatted in a different way, but the elements are the same:
Below are some examples and details about what to look for when trying to determine what type of publication that a citation is referring to.
Journal articles are the source type you will probably most frequently encounter. They can usually be easily identified by the presence of volume/issue numbers together with a page range.
A quick note about journal publishing in case you are not familiar with them: Journal issues are typically published on a periodic basis (monthly and quarterly are very common) and contain any number of articles in that issue. Issues are usually collected into volumes on a regular basis (usually annually). So for a quarterly journal, each volume will contain 4 issues. For a monthly journal, each volume will normally contain 12 issues.
Here is an example, the same journal article in three different citation styles.
These all look very similar, but there are subtle differences.
For the authors, some styles ask that you add periods after each initial but others don't. Some styles separate multiple authors with commas but others use semi-colons.
For the publication date, sometime it's placed right after the authors, sometimes it's after the journal title. Sometimes it's bolded, sometimes it's offset by parentheses.
For the source title (article title in this case), some styles use sentence case capitalization rules, where only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. Other styles (not represented here) use title case capitalization, where all words except for small ones like "the" and "and" are capitalized.
For the location of the source (in this case, the journal and publication info), there is typically a lot more variation. Some styles italicize the journal title, some abbreviate it. All styles will include at minimum though the journal title, journal volume number, and page range. If the volume is separated into issues, you need to include that as well, and if the article was found online, you need to include a link to the source (typically a DOI).
Book chapters are less frequently encountered than journal articles but are still pretty common.
The biggest signals you will have that you are looking at a book chapter is: some mention of editors, either the word "In" and the abbreviation "ed" or "eds" (for "editors") just before and after the editor names, or the presence of the word "Editor"; and the name of a publishing company. If you ever see these elements or something similar in a reference, you are almost certainly looking at a citation to a book chapter.
Here is an example, the same book chapter in three different citation styles.
Again, these look very similar but upon close inspection, you should see some small differences in punctuation, formatting, and/or placement of elements. However, they each have a chapter title ("Recounting whitetails past") as well as a book title ("The Science of Overabundance: Deer Ecology and Population Management"), they each have editors listed and identified with some abbreviation of the word "editors", and they each have a publisher ("Smithsonian Institution Press"). All of these things together should signal to you that this is a book chapter.
Note that this is a reference to a printed book. If this were an e-book, you would need to include the URL or DOI at the end of the citation.
Sometimes you will run across or need to create citations for books in their entirety. These references tend to be a bit shorter and have fewer elements than those of journal articles or book chapters.
Here is an example, the same book in three different citation styles.
Note that the only title present is the title of the book, and there are no page numbers listed. Together with the edition number (if present; not all books have an edition number list) and the name of the publisher, these are indicators that you are looking at a book as a whole.
Also note that this is for a printed book. If this were an e-book, you would need to include the URL or DOI at the end of the citation.
The examples on this page are just a few of the most commonly encountered source types in scientific writing. If you need to cite something else, such as a website or a video, take a look at the Miami Libraries Citation Resources Guide or contact your subject librarian.