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]

S. N. Swisher, “Space station research: details please,” Science, vol. 290, no. 5491, pp. 453e–4e, Oct. 2000.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

M. R. Smith and J.-B. Caron, “Primitive soft-bodied cephalopods from the Cambrian,” Nature, vol. 465, no. 7297, pp. 469–472, May 2010.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

T. A. Bida, R. M. Killen, and T. H. Morgan, “Discovery of calcium in Mercury’s atmosphere,” Nature, vol. 404, no. 6774, pp. 159–161, Mar. 2000.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

D. Polli et al., “Conical intersection dynamics of the primary photoisomerization event in vision,” Nature, vol. 467, no. 7314, pp. 440–443, Sep. 2010.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

W. Moll and A. Moll, Schallschutz im Wohnungsbau. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2011.

An edited book

[1]

B. Povh, Particles and Nuclei: An Introduction to the Physical Concepts, Fifth Edition. Fifth Edition.Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

I. Clarke, “The Role of Procurement and SGEI After Altmark,” in Financing Services of General Economic Interest: Reform and Modernization, E. Szyszczak and J. W. van de Gronden, Eds., The Hague, The Netherlands: T. M. C. Asser Press, 2013, pp. 69–84.

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]

T. Hale, “The Face Of Scottish King Robert The Bruce Has Been Digitally Reconstructed,” IFLScience, Dec. 08, 2016.

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, “Defaulted Student Loans: Preliminary Analysis of Student Loan Borrowers and Defaulters,” U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, HRD-88-112BR, Jun. 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

C. E. Alonzo, “Operation Uniting Families: Family treatment program a grant,” Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 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]

S. Hollander, “Cold and Tired, Australian Swimmer Wins Marathon for His Father,” New York Times, p. 87, Jun. 18, 2000.

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

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