How to format your references using the Applied Surface Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Applied Surface 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	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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]

D. Gammon, Electrons in artificial atoms, Nature 405 (2000) 899–900.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

M. Roeb, H. Müller-Steinhagen, Engineering. Concentrating on solar electricity and fuels, Science 329 (2010) 773–774.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

X. Dai, A. Chen, Z. Bai, Integrative investigation on breast cancer in ER, PR and HER2-defined subgroups using mRNA and miRNA expression profiling, Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 6566.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

D.S. Chelur, G.G. Ernstrom, M.B. Goodman, C.A. Yao, L. Chen, R. O’ Hagan, M. Chalfie, The mechanosensory protein MEC-6 is a subunit of the C. elegans touch-cell degenerin channel, Nature 420 (2002) 669–673.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

M.C. McMaster, HPLC, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2007.

An edited book

[1]

M. Kissler-Patig, J.R. Walsh, M.M. Roth, eds., Science Perspectives for 3D Spectroscopy: Proceedings of the ESO Workshop held in Garching, Germany, 10-14 October 2005, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

S. Dolev, O. Liba, E.M. Schiller, Self-stabilizing Byzantine Resilient Topology Discovery and Message Delivery, in: V. Gramoli, R. Guerraoui (Eds.), Networked Systems: First International Conference, NETYS 2013, Marrakech, Morocco, May 2-4, 2013, Revised Selected Papers, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013: pp. 42–57.

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 Applied Surface Science.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, What the Dog-Fish and Camel-Bird can tell us about how our brains work, IFLScience (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/technology/what-dog-fish-and-camel-bird-can-tell-us-about-how-our-brains-work/ (accessed October 30, 2018).

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, Telecommunications: Application of the Antideficiency Act and Other Fiscal Controls to FCC’s E-Rate Program, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2005.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

M. Cano, An in-home visitation program for homebound older adult Veterans: A grant proposal, Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, 2015.

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]

M.W. Walsh, Fresh Details on the Fed Rescue of A.I.G.’s Insurance Units, New York Times (2010) A4.

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	Applied Surface Science
Abbreviation	Appl. Surf. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0169-4332
Scope	Surfaces, Coatings and Films