How to format your references using the Autonomous Robots citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Autonomous Robots. 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
Wang, S. (2009). Journal club. A neuroscientist explores the energy efficiency of the brain. Nature, 461(7266), 851.
A journal article with 2 authors
Billinge, S. J. L., & Levin, I. (2007). The problem with determining atomic structure at the nanoscale. Science (New York, N.Y.), 316(5824), 561–565.
A journal article with 3 authors
Weaver, B. A. A., Silk, A. D., & Cleveland, D. W. (2006). Cell biology: nondisjunction, aneuploidy and tetraploidy. Nature, 442(7104), E9-10; discussion E10.
A journal article with 8 or more authors
Bonke, M., Thitamadee, S., Mähönen, A. P., Hauser, M.-T., & Helariutta, Y. (2003). APL regulates vascular tissue identity in Arabidopsis. Nature, 426(6963), 181–186.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Goddard Blythe, S. (2012). Assessing Neuromotor Readiness for Learning. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
An edited book
Huang, D.-S., Jo, K.-H., Lee, H.-H., Kang, H.-J., & Bevilacqua, V. (Eds.). (2009). Emerging Intelligent Computing Technology and Applications. With Aspects of Artificial Intelligence: 5th International Conference on Intelligent Computing, ICIC 2009 Ulsan, South Korea, September 16-19, 2009 Proceedings (Vol. 5755). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.
A chapter in an edited book
Beh, A. L., Fleet, G. H., Prakitchaiwattana, C., & Heard, G. M. (2006). Evaluation of molecular methods for the analysis of yeasts in foods and beverages. In A. D. Hocking, J. I. Pitt, R. A. Samson, & U. Thrane (Eds.), Advances in Food Mycology (pp. 69–106). Boston, MA: Springer US.

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 Autonomous Robots.

Blog post
O`Callaghan, J. (2016, June 8). Astronomers Prepare For First Ever Black Hole Image With New Algorithm. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/astronomers-prepare-for-first-ever-black-hole-image-with-new-algorithm/. Accessed 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. (2005). Special Education: Children With Autism (No. GAO-05-220). Washington, DC: 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
Zhao, L. (2017). Modeling, Estimation and Approximation in Structured Models (Doctoral dissertation). University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA.

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
Sarotte, M. E. (2014, November 6). How the Berlin Wall Really Fell. New York Times, p. A21.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Wang 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Billinge and Levin 2007; Wang 2009).

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

  • Two authors: (Billinge and Levin 2007)
  • Three or more authors: (Bonke et al. 2003)

About the journal

Full journal titleAutonomous Robots
AbbreviationAuton. Robots
ISSN (print)0929-5593
ISSN (online)1573-7527
ScopeArtificial Intelligence

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