How to format your references using the APL Materials citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for APL 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:

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

¹ R. Triendl, “Computerized role models,” Nature 417(6892), 7 (2002).

A journal article with 2 authors

¹ S.M. Iyer, and S.L. Delp, “Neuroscience. Optogenetic regeneration,” Science 344(6179), 44–45 (2014).

A journal article with 3 authors

¹ C. Callou, A. Samzun, and A. Zivie, “Archaeology: a lion found in the Egyptian tomb of Maïa,” Nature 427(6971), 211–212 (2004).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

¹ S. Miller, C. Pfund, C.M. Pribbenow, and J. Handelsman, “The pipeline. Scientific teaching in practice,” Science 322(5906), 1329–1330 (2008).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

¹ J.R. Vacca, Optical Networking Best Practices Handbook (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2006).

An edited book

¹ A. Welch, editor , The Professoriate: Profile of a Profession (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2005).

A chapter in an edited book

¹ H. Kellerman, and A. Burry, “Reality Testing and Cognitive Functioning,” in Handbook of Psychodiagnostic Testing: Analysis of Personality in the Psychological Report, edited by H. Kellerman and A. Burry, (Springer, New York, NY, 2007), pp. 33–42.

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 APL Materials.

Blog post

¹ K. Hamilton, “Watch A Hornet Be Cooked Alive By Bees,” IFLScience, (2014).

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

¹ Government Accountability Office, Earth Observing System: Information on NASA’s Selection of Data Centers (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1991).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

¹ C.L. Urshel, The Technical Adequacy of Standards-Derived Curriculum-Based Measures for Reading Comprehension and Math Computation in Middle School, Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2006.

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

¹ J. Barron, “Rebirth of a Bronx Housing Complex Aims to Cut Crime and Increase Homes,” New York Times, A24 (2016).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	APL Materials
Abbreviation	APL Mater.
ISSN (online)	2166-532X
Scope