How to format your references using the Bell Labs Technical Journal citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Bell Labs Technical Journal. 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

[1]

C. Adami, “Evolution. Reducible complexity,” Science, vol. 312, no. 5770, pp. 61–63, Apr. 2006.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

S. G. Martin and D. St Johnston, “A role for Drosophila LKB1 in anterior-posterior axis formation and epithelial polarity,” Nature, vol. 421, no. 6921, pp. 379–384, Jan. 2003.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

F. Delsuc, M. J. Phillips, and D. Penny, “Comment on ‘Hexapod origins: monophyletic or paraphyletic?,’” Science, vol. 301, no. 5639, pp. 1482; author reply 1482, Sep. 2003.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

R. Jedicke, D. Nesvorný, R. Whiteley, Z. Ivezić Z, and M. Jurić, “An age-colour relationship for main-belt S-complex asteroids,” Nature, vol. 429, no. 6989, pp. 275–277, May 2004.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

M. Zlokarnik, Scale-up. Weinheim, FRG: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2005.

An edited book

[1]

G. Mudacumura and G. Morçöl, Eds., Challenges to Democratic Governance in Developing Countries, vol. 11. in Public Administration, Governance and Globalization, vol. 11. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

R. Backhouse, “The Capacity-C Torch Problem,” in Mathematics of Program Construction: 9th International Conference, MPC 2008, Marseille, France, July 15-18, 2008. Proceedings, P. Audebaud and C. Paulin-Mohring, Eds., in Lecture Notes in Computer Science. , Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2008, pp. 57–78.

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 Bell Labs Technical Journal.

Blog post

[1]

J. O`Callaghan, “What Would Happen If The International Space Station Was Hit By A Meteoroid?,” IFLScience. Accessed: Oct. 30, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/space/what-would-happen-if-the-iss-was-hit-by-a-meteorite/

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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, “Mass Transit Grants: Noncompliance and Misspent Funds by Two Grantees in UMTA’s New York Region,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, RCED-92-38, Jan. 1992.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

U. Ameen, “Social and political climates’ influence on Muslim American students’ intersectional identity,” Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2012.

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

[1]

L. Baker, “Near Seattle, Tribal Casinos Lead to Even Bigger Bets,” New York Times, p. C6, Nov. 14, 2007.

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], [2], [3], [4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Bell Labs Technical Journal
Abbreviation	Bell Labs Tech. J.
ISSN (print)	1089-7089
Scope	Electrical and Electronic Engineering