How to format your references using the Bioactive Materials citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Bioactive Materials. 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
[1]
A. Cho, Computer science. Quantum or not, controversial computer yields no speedup, Science 344 (2014) 1330–1331.
A journal article with 2 authors
[1]
P. Janvier, M. Arsenault, Palaeobiology: calcification of early vertebrate cartilage, Nature 417 (2002) 609.
A journal article with 3 authors
[1]
H. Ma, K. Aihara, L. Chen, Detecting causality from nonlinear dynamics with short-term time series, Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 7464.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
[1]
M.-L. Dequéant, E. Glynn, K. Gaudenz, M. Wahl, J. Chen, A. Mushegian, O. Pourquié, A complex oscillating network of signaling genes underlies the mouse segmentation clock, Science 314 (2006) 1595–1598.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
[1]
Ö. Ergül, L. Gürel, The Multilevel Fast Multipole Algorithm (MLFMA) for Solving Large-Scale Computational Electromagnetics Problems, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2014.
An edited book
[1]
R. Prasad, S. Dixit, R. van Nee, T. Ojanpera, eds., Globalization of Mobile and Wireless Communications: Today and in 2020, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2011.
A chapter in an edited book
[1]
H. Iba, C.C. Aranha, Predicting Financial Data, in: C.C. Aranha (Ed.), Practical Applications of Evolutionary Computation to Financial Engineering: Robust Techniques for Forecasting, Trading and Hedging, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2012: pp. 85–121.

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 Bioactive Materials.

Blog post
[1]
E. Andrew, How Volkswagen Got Caught Cheating Emissions Tests By A Clean Air NGO, IFLScience (2015).

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, Federally Funded Research: Controlling Inappropriate Access to Research Results, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1993.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
[1]
V.J. Whitesides, The Large Ensemble/European Classical Music Paradigm and African American-Originated Dance-Musicking: A Dispositival Analysis of U.S. Secondary Music Education, Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University, 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
[1]
J. Koblin, ‘I Am Cait,’ Failing to Attract Viewers, Is Ending After Two Seasons, New York Times (2016) C2.

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 titleBioactive Materials
AbbreviationBioact. Mater.
ISSN (print)2452-199X
Scope

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