How to format your references using the Computational Optimization and Applications citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Computational Optimization and Applications. 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

Batty, M.: The size, scale, and shape of cities. Science. 319, 769–771 (2008)

A journal article with 2 authors

Yanega, G.M., Rubega, M.A.: Feeding mechanisms: Hummingbird jaw bends to aid insect capture. Nature. 428, 615 (2004)

A journal article with 3 authors

Karlsson, M.P., Tervo, D.G.R., Karpova, A.Y.: Network resets in medial prefrontal cortex mark the onset of behavioral uncertainty. Science. 338, 135–139 (2012)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Zhang, S.L., Liu, Y., Collins-McIntyre, L.J., Hesjedal, T., Zhang, J.Y., Wang, S.G., Yu, G.H.: Extraordinary hall balance. Sci. Rep. 3, 2087 (2013)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Smith, I.M., Griffiths, D.V., Margetts, L.: Programming the Finite Element Method. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK (2015)

An edited book

Kobayashi, T.: Conformal Symmetry Breaking Operators for Differential Forms on Spheres. Springer, Singapore (2016)

A chapter in an edited book

Brouquet, A., Andreou, A., Shindoh, J., Vauthey, J.-N.: Methods to Improve Resectability of Hepatocellular Carcinoma. In: Vauthey, J.-N. and Brouquet, A. (eds.) Multidisciplinary Treatment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma. pp. 57–67. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2013)

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 Computational Optimization and Applications.

Blog post

Hamilton, K.: Lift-Off For NASA Mission To Collect Grains From An Asteroid That May Be On Collision Course With Earth, https://www.iflscience.com/space/lift-off-for-nasa-mission-to-collect-grains-from-an-asteroid-that-may-be-on-collision-course-with-earth/

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: NASA’s Administrative Review of a Patent Infringement Claim. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2000)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

McCorkle, W.B.: Tongue, Nib, Block, Bit: Rhetorical Delivery and Technologies of Writing, (2005)

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

Vecsey, G.: Mets Thank Troops In a Meaningful Setting, (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 [1–4].

About the journal

Full journal title	Computational Optimization and Applications
Abbreviation	Comput. Optim. Appl.
ISSN (print)	0926-6003
ISSN (online)	1573-2894
Scope	Applied Mathematics Computational Mathematics Control and Optimization