How to format your references using the Astrophysics and Space Science citation style

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

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
Wright, P.A.: Chemistry. Opening the door to peptide-based porous solids. Science. 329, 1025–1026 (2010)
A journal article with 2 authors
Li, X., Xu, J.: Dietary and circulating lycopene and stroke risk: a meta-analysis of prospective studies. Sci. Rep. 4, 5031 (2014)
A journal article with 3 authors
Cohn, A., Fehr, E., Maréchal, M.A.: Business culture and dishonesty in the banking industry. Nature. 516, 86–89 (2014)
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Salmon, P.S., Martin, R.A., Mason, P.E., Cuello, G.J.: Topological versus chemical ordering in network glasses at intermediate and extended length scales. Nature. 435, 75–78 (2005)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Ji, Z.-G.: Hydrodynamics and Water Quality. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2017)
An edited book
Legay, A., Bozga, M. eds: Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems: 12th International Conference, FORMATS 2014, Florence, Italy, September 8-10, 2014. Proceedings. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2014)
A chapter in an edited book
Ekardt, F.: Climate Change and Justice: Perspectives of Legal Theory. In: Hollo, E.J., Kulovesi, K., and Mehling, M. (eds.) Climate Change and the Law. pp. 63–79. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht (2013)

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 Astrophysics and Space Science.

Blog post
Andrew, E.: Have Children? Here’s How Kids Ruin Your Romantic Relationship

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: Preliminary Observations on Funding, Oversight, and Investigations and Prosecutions of ACORN or Potentially Related Organizations. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2010)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Baker, T.N.: The Impact of Undergraduate Research Participation on Research Self-Efficacy, (2017)

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
Koblin, J.: CBS Wrongly Reports Singer’s Death, (2017)

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Wright 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Li and Xu 2014; Wright 2010).

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

  • Two authors: (Li and Xu 2014)
  • Three or more authors: (Salmon et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleAstrophysics and Space Science
AbbreviationAstrophys. Space Sci.
ISSN (print)0004-640X
ISSN (online)1572-946X
ScopeSpace and Planetary Science
Astronomy and Astrophysics

Other styles