How to format your references using the Chemical Physics Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Chemical Physics Letters. 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]

J.S. Siegel, Chemistry. Chemical topology and interlocking molecules, Science 304 (2004) 1256–1258.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

J. Abrahamson, J. Dinniss, Ball lightning caused by oxidation of nanoparticle networks from normal lightning strikes on soil, Nature 403 (2000) 519–521.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

A. Bezryadin, C.N. Lau, M. Tinkham, Quantum suppression of superconductivity in ultrathin nanowires, Nature 404 (2000) 971–974.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Y.T. Kwon, A.S. Kashina, I.V. Davydov, R.-G. Hu, J.Y. An, J.W. Seo, F. Du, A. Varshavsky, An essential role of N-terminal arginylation in cardiovascular development, Science 297 (2002) 96–99.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

W. Schmidt, Optische Spektroskopie, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2000.

An edited book

[1]

S. Kusuoka, T. Maruyama, eds., Advances in Mathematical Economics Volume 18, Springer Japan, Tokyo, 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

H. Grossmann, Additional Texts on Mechanism, in: G. Freudenthal, P. McLaughlin (Eds.), The Social and Economic Roots of the Scientific Revolution: Texts by Boris Hessen and Henryk Grossmann, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2009: pp. 231–237.

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 Chemical Physics Letters.

Blog post

[1]

T. Hale, Archaeologists Discover Surprising 5,000-Year-Old Beer Recipe From Ancient China, IFLScience (2016). https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/archaeologists-unravel-5000-year-old-beer-recipe-ancient-china/ (accessed October 30, 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Rail Transit: Observations on FTA’s State Safety Oversight Program and Potential Change in Its Oversight Role, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2009.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

D. Oparnica, The role of nurses in health care reform: A project report, Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, 2013.

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]

G. Vecsey, What He Won’t Say, the White Flag Will, New York Times (2012) D2.

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 title	Chemical Physics Letters
Abbreviation	Chem. Phys. Lett.
ISSN (print)	0009-2614
Scope	Physical and Theoretical Chemistry General Physics and Astronomy