How to format your references using the China Communications citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for China Communications. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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]

G. Q. Daley, “Gametes from embryonic stem cells: a cup half empty or half full?,” Science, vol. 316, no. 5823, pp. 409–410, Apr. 2007.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

J. Dobbelaere and Y. Barral, “Spatial coordination of cytokinetic events by compartmentalization of the cell cortex,” Science, vol. 305, no. 5682, pp. 393–396, Jul. 2004.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

M. Yazdanbakhsh, P. G. Kremsner, and R. van Ree, “Allergy, parasites, and the hygiene hypothesis,” Science, vol. 296, no. 5567, pp. 490–494, Apr. 2002.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

P.-H. Blard, J. Lavé, R. Pik, P. Wagnon, and D. Bourlès, “Persistence of full glacial conditions in the central Pacific until 15,000 years ago,” Nature, vol. 449, no. 7162, pp. 591–594, Oct. 2007.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

M. Bojowald, The Universe: A View from Classical and Quantum Gravity. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2012.

An edited book

[1]

L. Rivas, Detection and Typing Strategies for Pathogenic Escherichia coli. in SpringerBriefs in Food, Health, and Nutrition. New York, NY: Springer, 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

M. P. Notari, M. Hielscher, and M. King, “Educational Apps Ontology,” in Mobile Learning Design: Theories and Application, D. Churchill, J. Lu, T. K. F. Chiu, and B. Fox, Eds., in Lecture Notes in Educational Technology. , Singapore: Springer, 2016, pp. 83–96.

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 China Communications.

Blog post

[1]

J. Fang, “Rare Blurring Of Black Hole Light Observed,” IFLScience. Accessed: Oct. 30, 2018. [Online]. Available: https://www.iflscience.com/space/rare-blurring-black-hole-light-observed/

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, “Student Loans: Default Rates at Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, HRD-93-117FS, Aug. 1993.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

C. Gopalappa, “Three essays on analytical models to improve early detection of cancer,” Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, 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]

M. W. Walsh, “Shuttle’s End Leaves NASA A Pension Bill,” New York Times, p. A1, Jun. 15, 2011.

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	China Communications
Abbreviation	China Commun.
ISSN (print)	1673-5447
Scope