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
Nosengo, N.: The quota conundrum. Nature. 426, 211 (2003)
A journal article with 2 authors
Klejnot, J., Lin, C.: Plant sciences. A CONSTANS experience brought to light. Science. 303, 965–966 (2004)
A journal article with 3 authors
Adams, E.J., Chien, Y.-H., Garcia, K.C.: Structure of a gammadelta T cell receptor in complex with the nonclassical MHC T22. Science. 308, 227–231 (2005)
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Madon, T., Hofman, K.J., Kupfer, L., Glass, R.I.: Public health. Implementation science. Science. 318, 1728–1729 (2007)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Florczyk, S.: Robot Vision. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, FRG (2004)
An edited book
Shafique, M.: Hardware/Software Architectures for Low-Power Embedded Multimedia Systems. Springer, New York, NY (2011)
A chapter in an edited book
Mui, R., Frankl, P.: Preventing Web Application Injections with Complementary Character Coding. In: Atluri, V. and Diaz, C. (eds.) Computer Security – ESORICS 2011: 16th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, Leuven, Belgium, September 12-14,2011. Proceedings. pp. 80–99. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2011)

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.: Dolphin Pod Escorts Swimmer Through Shark-Infested Water, https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/dolphin-pod-escorts-swimmer-through-shark-infested-water/

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: Air Traffic Control: Continued Improvements Needed in FAA’s Management of the NAS Plan. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1988)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Campos-Doerfler, L.: The Role of Sgs1 and Exo1 in the Maintenance of Genome Stability, (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
Sisario, B.: After a Half-Century in Music, Still Hunting for Hits, (2017)

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Nosengo 2003).
This sentence cites two references (Klejnot and Lin 2004; Nosengo 2003).

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

  • Two authors: (Klejnot and Lin 2004)
  • Three or more authors: (Madon et al. 2007)

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

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