How to format your references using the Colloid and Polymer Science citation style

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

Kaplan K (2009) Unmasking the impostor. Nature 459:468–469

A journal article with 2 authors

Clayton J, Butler D (2004) The long and winding road. Nature 430:937

A journal article with 3 authors

Fukuda H, Murase H, Tokuda IT (2013) Controlling circadian rhythms by dark-pulse perturbations in Arabidopsis thaliana. Sci Rep 3:1533

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Heger K, Wickliffe KE, Ndoja A, et al (2018) OTULIN limits cell death and inflammation by deubiquitinating LUBAC. Nature 559:120–124

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Misstear B, Banks D, Clark L (2006) Water Wells and Boreholes. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Klein S, Poulymenakou A (2006) Managing Dynamic Networks: Organizational Perspectives of Technology Enabled Inter-firm Collaboration. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Liu Y-H, Wang H (2006) Adaptive Visual Servoing of Robot Manipulators. In: Kawamura S, Svinin M (eds) Advances in Robot Control: From Everyday Physics to Human-Like Movements. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 55–82

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 Colloid and Polymer Science.

Blog post

Andrews R (2016) High-Risk Stem Cell Therapy Found To Halt Multiple Sclerosis. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/high-risk-stem-cell-therapy-found-halt-multiple-sclerosis/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1976) Problems Resulting From Management Practices in Recruiting, Training, and Using Non-High-School Graduates and Category IV Personnel. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Sommer A (2017) How Experiences Influence and Inform School Principals’ Actions to Further Develop Teachers’ Instructional Practice. Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University

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

Meyer JA, Meyer LR (2007) All Prosecution Is Local. New York Times CT15

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	Colloid and Polymer Science
Abbreviation	Colloid Polym. Sci.
ISSN (print)	0303-402X
ISSN (online)	1435-1536
Scope	Colloid and Surface Chemistry Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Materials Chemistry Polymers and Plastics