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Council of Science Editors (CSE) Citation Style Guide

An overview of the CSE citation style used across the sciences.

Websites

Website

Author name. Date of publication. Title of article/webpage. Publisher; [date updated]. URL

Anatomy of a citation
  1. Author name(s): Formatted as last name and initials (no periods) and separated by commas. Do not use & or "and" before the last author. For articles with more than 5 authors, list the first author followed by “et al.”
    • If not author is listed, cite under the title of the article
  2. Date of publication: Formatted as year month (abbreviated) and day.
  3. Title of article/webpage: Use sentence case.
  4. Publisher
  5. Date updated: Include modified or updated date in brackets, if applicable.
  6. URL: Try to use a permalink or stable URL when possible.
 
Example

Green infrastructure and extreme weather. 2015 Oct 1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; [updated 2025 Feb 14]. https://www.epa.gov/green-infrastructure/green-infrastructure-and-extreme-weather

Blogs

Blog

Author name. Date of publication. Title of post [blog post]. Blog Title. URL

Anatomy of a citation
  1. Author name(s): Formatted as last name and initials (no periods) and separated by commas. Do not use & or "and" before the last author. For articles with more than 5 authors, list the first author followed by “et al.”
    • If not author is listed, cite under the title of the article
  2. Date: Formatted as year month (abbreviated) and day. If no date of publication is available, use [date unknown] provide an access date (see #6)
  3. Title of post: Use sentence case.
  4. Content designator: Use only if nature of the work is not evident from either the post or blog title.
  5. Title of blog: Use title case.
  6. Access date: If no date of publication is available, format as [accessed year mo day].
  7. URL: Try to use a permalink or stable URL when possible.

 

Example

Williams S. 2023 Nov 22. Behind the paper: Neuronal activity can drive cerebrospinal fluid flow in the human brain [blog post]. PLOS Biologue. https://biologue.plos.org/2023/11/22/behind-the-paper-neuronal-activity-can-drive-cerebrospinal-fluid-flow-in-the-human-brain/