How to format your references using the Astronomy and Computing citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Astronomy and Computing. 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

Tauxe, W., 2015. A tumour through time. Nature 527, S102-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Hoshi, E., Tanji, J., 2000. Integration of target and body-part information in the premotor cortex when planning action. Nature 408, 466–470.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cheng, N., Tsunenari, T., Yau, K.-W., 2009. Intrinsic light response of retinal horizontal cells of teleosts. Nature 460, 899–903.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Murtra, P., Sheasby, A.M., Hunt, S.P., De Felipe, C., 2000. Rewarding effects of opiates are absent in mice lacking the receptor for substance P. Nature 405, 180–183.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lin, X.S., 2006. Introductory Stochastic Analysis for Finance and Insurance: Lin/Introductory, Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Jøsang, A., Carlsson, B. (Eds.), 2012. Secure IT Systems: 17th Nordic Conference, NordSec 2012, Karlskrona, Sweden, October 31 – November 2, 2012. Proceedings, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Pye, K., Tsoar, H., 2009. Mechanics of Aeolian Sand Transport, in: Tsoar, H. (Ed.), Aeolian Sand and Sand Dunes. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 99–139.

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 Astronomy and Computing.

Blog post

Fang, J., 2014. Ship Eating Clams Digest Wood With Gill Microbes [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ship-eating-clams-digest-wood-with-gill-microbes/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2010. Telecommunications: FCC Should Assess the Design of the E-rate Program’s Internal Control Structure (No. GAO-10-908). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Khayyat, A.M., 2015. Use of near field communication technology to prevent consumption and usage of expired products (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Cowen, T., 2014. From Colonial India, Lessons for a Changed Economy. New York Times BU4.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Tauxe, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Hoshi and Tanji, 2000; Tauxe, 2015).

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

Two authors: (Hoshi and Tanji, 2000)
Three or more authors: (Murtra et al., 2000)

About the journal

Full journal title	Astronomy and Computing
Abbreviation	Astron. Comput.
ISSN (print)	2213-1337
Scope	Computer Science Applications Astronomy and Astrophysics