How to format your references using the Acta Crystallographica Section B: Structural Science, Crystal Engineering and Materials citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Crystallographica Section B: Structural Science, Crystal Engineering and Materials. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author
Hengartner, M. O. (2001). Nature 412, 27, 29.
A journal article with 2 authors
Coudreuse, D. & Nurse, P. (2010). Nature 468, 1074–1079.
A journal article with 3 authors
Marte, B., Eccleston, A. & Nath, D. (2008). Nature 452, 547.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Denli, A. M., Tops, B. B. J., Plasterk, R. H. A., Ketting, R. F. & Hannon, G. J. (2004). Nature 432, 231–235.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book
Nathanail, C. P. & Bardos, R. P. (2005). Reclamation of Contaminated Land Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Bronstein, M. D. (2011). Cushing’s Syndrome: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis and Treatment Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.
A chapter in an edited book
Hannachi, L., Asfari, O., Benblidia, N., Bentayeb, F., Kabachi, N. & Boussaid, O. (2012). Vol. Advanced Data Mining and Applications: 8th International Conference, ADMA 2012, Nanjing, China, December 15-18, 2012. Proceedings, edited by S. Zhou, S. Zhang & G. Karypis. pp. 39–51. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Acta Crystallographica Section B: Structural Science, Crystal Engineering and Materials.

Blog post
O`Callaghan, J. (2016). IFLScience, https://www.iflscience.com/space/dawn-spacecraft-may-become-first-orbit-three-separate-objects-space/.

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report
Government Accountability Office (1976). Status and Issues Relating to the Space Transportation System Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation
Park, J. K. (2012). Target Identification, Therapeutic Application and Maturation Mechanism of microRNAs. Doctoral dissertation. Ohio State University.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article
Saslow, L. (2006). New York Times LI2.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Hengartner, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Hengartner, 2001; Coudreuse & Nurse, 2010).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

  • Two authors: (Coudreuse & Nurse, 2010)
  • Three or more authors: (Denli et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal titleActa Crystallographica Section B: Structural Science, Crystal Engineering and Materials
AbbreviationActa Crystallogr. B Struct. Sci. Cryst. Eng. Mater.
ISSN (online)2052-5206
ScopeElectronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
Materials Chemistry
Metals and Alloys
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

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