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
Brody, H.: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Nature. 489, S1 (2012)
A journal article with 2 authors
Sankar, P., Cho, M.K.: Genetics. Toward a new vocabulary of human genetic variation. Science. 298, 1337–1338 (2002)
A journal article with 3 authors
Anderson, D.G., Burdick, J.A., Langer, R.: Materials science. Smart biomaterials. Science. 305, 1923–1924 (2004)
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Ni, X., Wang, Y., Hu, Y., Li, C.: A euprimate skull from the early Eocene of China. Nature. 427, 65–68 (2004)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Dimon, R.: Enterprise Performance Management Done Right. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2013)
An edited book
Grothaus, M.: Taking Your iPhone to the Max, iOS 5 Edition. Apress, Berkeley, CA (2011)
A chapter in an edited book
Osipov, G., Smirnov, I., Tikhomirov, I., Sochenkov, I., Shelmanov, A., Shvets, A.: Information Retrieval for R&D support. In: Paltoglou, G., Loizides, F., and Hansen, P. (eds.) Professional Search in the Modern World: COST Action IC1002 on Multilingual and Multifaceted Interactive Information Access. pp. 45–69. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2014)

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
Carpineti, A.: Breakthrough Computer Could Survive Extreme Conditions On Venus, https://www.iflscience.com/technology/breakthrough-computer-could-survive-extreme-conditions-on-venus/

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: FirstNet: Efforts to Establish the Public-Safety Broadband Network. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2017)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
Nagarajah, B.A.: The influence of professional training and personal factors on technostress: A correlational study, (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
Carey Goldberg With: Russia’s Doctors Are Beggars At Work, Paupers at Home, (2000)

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Brody 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Brody 2012; Sankar and Cho 2002).

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

  • Two authors: (Sankar and Cho 2002)
  • Three or more authors: (Ni et al. 2004)

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