How to format your references using the AIMS Materials Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for AIMS Materials Science. 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:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX 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

Pleasants S (2014) Epidemiology: a moving target. Nature 515: S2-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kaproth BM, Marone C (2013) Slow earthquakes, preseismic velocity changes, and the origin of slow frictional stick-slip. Science 341: 1229–1232.

A journal article with 3 authors

Wade JT, Hall DB, Struhl K (2004) The transcription factor Ifh1 is a key regulator of yeast ribosomal protein genes. Nature 432: 1054–1058.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Zhou J, Gao Y, Zhang Z, et al. (2013) VO₂ thermochromic smart window for energy savings and generation. Sci Rep 3: 3029.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hooper J, Zalewski A, Watanabe E (2013) Advanced Charting Techniques for High Probability Trading, Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Brun del Re R (Ed.) (2010) Minimally Invasive Breast Biopsies, Berlin, Heidelberg, Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Liu Q, Duan X, Peng C (2014) Laser Micro-/Nanofabrication and Applications Based on Multiphoton Process, In: Duan X, Peng C (Eds.), Novel Optical Technologies for Nanofabrication, Berlin, Heidelberg, Springer, 81–151.

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 AIMS Materials Science.

Blog post

Carpineti A (2016) IFLScience, Hordes Of Planets And Failed Stars Found In The Orion Nebula, 2016. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/hordes-of-planets-and-failed-stars-found-in-the-orion-nebula/.

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 (1978) Federal Direction Needed for Educating Handicapped Children in State Schools, 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

Yahyai S (2013) Optimization of a method for testing ballast water for enterococci and an investigation on the occurrence of antibiotic resistance in vibrio cholerae.

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

Kanter J (2017) Celebrating Trade Deal, Trudeau Praises E.U. New York Times A8.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [1].
This sentence cites two references [1,2].
This sentence cites four references [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	AIMS Materials Science
ISSN (online)	2372-0484
Scope