How to format your references using the Atoms citation style

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

Assad, J.A. Neuroscience: Updating Views of Visual Updating. Nature 2014, 507, 434–435.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ray-Gallet, D.; Almouzni, G. Molecular Biology. Mixing or Not Mixing. Science 2010, 328, 56–57.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bonasio, R.; Tu, S.; Reinberg, D. Molecular Signals of Epigenetic States. Science 2010, 330, 612–616.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Tsai, T.Y.-C.; Choi, Y.S.; Ma, W.; Pomerening, J.R.; Tang, C.; Ferrell, J.E., Jr Robust, Tunable Biological Oscillations from Interlinked Positive and Negative Feedback Loops. Science 2008, 321, 126–129.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Burwick, F. Romanticism; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2015; ISBN 9781118893074.

An edited book

Handbook of Food Fortification and Health: From Concepts to Public Health Applications Volume 2; Preedy, V.R., Srirajaskanthan, R., Patel, V.B., Eds.; Nutrition and Health; Springer: New York, NY, 2013; ISBN 9781461471097.

A chapter in an edited book

Kasana, R.C.; Panwar, N.R.; Kaul, R.K.; Kumar, P. Copper Nanoparticles in Agriculture: Biological Synthesis and Antimicrobial Activity. In Nanoscience in Food and Agriculture 3; Ranjan, S., Dasgupta, N., Lichtfouse, E., Eds.; Sustainable Agriculture Reviews; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; pp. 129–143 ISBN 9783319480084.

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 Atoms.

Blog post

Hale, T. This Easy Online Breathlessness Test Can Check If You Might Have A Chronic Illness Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/this-easy-online-breathlessness-test-can-check-if-you-might-have-a-chronic-illness/ (accessed on 30 October 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

Government Accountability Office Technology Development: New DOD Space Science and Technology Strategy Provides Basis for Optimizing Investments, but Future Versions Need to Be More Robust; 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

Chung, E.K. The Sophisticated Genetic Diversities of Human Complement Component C4 and RCCX Modules in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University: Columbus, OH, 2003.

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. Frank Ocean Takes Unusual Journey to No. 1. New York Times 2016, C3.

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	Atoms
Abbreviation	Atoms
ISSN (online)	2218-2004
Scope