How to format your references using the Centaurus citation style

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

Zehr, J. P. (2015) EVOLUTION. How single cells work together. Science (New York, N.Y.), 349(6253), 1163–1164.

A journal article with 2 authors

Federman, S. R. and Young, E. D. (2009) Comment on “Experimental test of self-shielding in vacuum ultraviolet photodissociation of CO.” Science (New York, N.Y.), 324(5934), 1516; author reply 1516.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kainulainen, J., Federrath, C., and Henning, T. (2014) Unfolding the laws of star formation: the density distribution of molecular clouds. Science (New York, N.Y.), 344(6180), 183–185.

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Miyanishi, M., Tada, K., Koike, M., Uchiyama, Y., et al. (2007) Identification of Tim4 as a phosphatidylserine receptor. Nature, 450(7168), 435–439.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cox, I., Gaudard, M. A., and Stephens, M. L. (2016) Visual Six Sigma, Second Edition (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).

An edited book

Sigamani, V., Miller, J. J. H., Narasimhan, R., Mathiazhagan, P., and Victor, F. (eds.) (2016) Differential Equations and Numerical Analysis: Tiruchirappalli, India, January 2015 (New Delhi: Springer India).

A chapter in an edited book

Orbay, H. and Cai, W. (2014) Tissue Engineering Applications for Peripheral Nerve Repair, in:, W. Cai (ed.), Engineering in Translational Medicine (London: Springer), pp. 133–153.

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 Centaurus.

Blog post

Hamilton, K. (2017) [online] Animals Know When They Are Being Treated Unfairly (And They Don’t Like It). IFLScience, IFLScience. Available online at: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/animals-know-when-they-are-being-treated-unfairly-and-they-dont-like-it/ (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 (1992) FTS 2000: Mandatory Use (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

Gada, K. K. (2015) Numerical analyses of passive and active flow control over a micro air vehicle with an optimized airfoil. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach.

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

Billard, M. (2010, 29 July) Both Sides of the Border. New York Times, E5.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Zehr, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Zehr, 2015; Federman & Young, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Federman & Young, 2009)
Three authors: (Kainulainen, Federrath, & Henning, 2014)
4 or more authors: (Miyanishi et al., 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	Centaurus
Abbreviation	Centaurus
ISSN (print)	0008-8994
ISSN (online)	1600-0498
Scope	History and Philosophy of Science

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