How to format your references using the Automatica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Automatica. 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	Download the output style file
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

Szyszka, P. (2014). Ecology. Follow the odor. Science (New York, N.Y.), 344(6191), 1454.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ponce de León, M. S., & Zollikofer, C. P. (2001). Neanderthal cranial ontogeny and its implications for late hominid diversity. Nature, 412(6846), 534–538.

A journal article with 3 authors

Cronin, T. W., Caldwell, R. L., & Marshall, J. (2001). Sensory adaptation. Tunable colour vision in a mantis shrimp. Nature, 411(6837), 547–548.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Wang, L., Peng, B., Peng, L., Guo, X., Xie, Z., & Ding, W. (2013). Mesostructural Bi-Mo-O catalyst: correct structure leading to high performance. Scientific Reports, 3, 2881.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Safonov, V. O. (2007). Using Aspect-Oriented Programming for Trustworthy Software Development. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Agabiti Rosei, E., & Mancia, G. (Eds.). (2015). Assessment of Preclinical Organ Damage in Hypertension. Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Hoeyer, K. (2016). Denmark at a Crossroad? Intensified Data Sourcing in a Research Radical Country. In B. D. Mittelstadt & L. Floridi (Eds.), The Ethics of Biomedical Big Data (pp. 73–93). Springer International Publishing.

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 Automatica.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2015, July 10). What will Climate be Like in 2100? Expect Surprises, Says New Met Office Study. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/what-will-climate-be-2100-expect-surprises-says-new-met-office-study/

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. (1971). Relationship of Contractor and Grantee ADP Activities (092981). U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Trantham, L. C. (2012). PSA surveillance following radical prostatectomy: What we know and why it matters [Doctoral dissertation]. University of North Carolina.

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

Baker, A. L., & Mueller, B. (2016, May 7). A Shooting, the Hospital and Then, Months Later, a Homicide. New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Szyszka, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Ponce de León & Zollikofer, 2001; Szyszka, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Ponce de León & Zollikofer, 2001)
Three authors: (Cronin et al., 2001)
6 or more authors: (Wang et al., 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Automatica
Abbreviation	Automatica (Oxf.)
ISSN (print)	0005-1098
Scope	Control and Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering