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]

N. Stafford, Turbulent times, Nature. 443 (2006) 385.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

L.E. Williams, J.A. Bargh, Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth, Science. 322 (2008) 606–607.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

B. Shipley, D. Vile, E. Garnier, From plant traits to plant communities: a statistical mechanistic approach to biodiversity, Science. 314 (2006) 812–814.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

P. Walther, J.-W. Pan, M. Aspelmeyer, R. Ursin, S. Gasparoni, A. Zeilinger, De Broglie wavelength of a non-local four-photon state, Nature. 429 (2004) 158–161.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

C.O. Kappe, A. Stadler, D. Dallinger, Microwaves in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2012.

An edited book

[1]

E.D. Miner, Planetary Ring Systems, Praxis, New York, NY, 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

J. Llamas, P.M. Lerones, E. Zalama, J. Gómez-García-Bermejo, Applying Deep Learning Techniques to Cultural Heritage Images Within the INCEPTION Project, in: M. Ioannides, E. Fink, A. Moropoulou, M. Hagedorn-Saupe, A. Fresa, G. Liestøl, V. Rajcic, P. Grussenmeyer (Eds.), Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection: 6th International Conference, EuroMed 2016, Nicosia, Cyprus, October 31 – November 5, 2016, Proceedings, Part II, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016: pp. 25–32.

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]

J. Davis, Tigers Seized By Officials From Controversial Tiger Temple In Thailand, IFLScience. (2016). https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/tigers-seized-officials-tiger-temple-thailand/ (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, Navigation Systems, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1977.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

K.A. Heckman, Pedogenesis & carbon dynamics across a lithosequence under ponderosa pine, Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona, 2010.

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]

B. Casselman, A Lasting Scar of Recession: 1.5 Million Workers Vanish, New York Times. (2017) B1.

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

Research and Writing Guides