How to format your references using the Computers citation style

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

de Lange, T. How Telomeres Solve the End-Protection Problem. Science 2009, 326, 948–952.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gibbons, G.W.; Shellard, E.P.S. Cosmology. Tales of Singularities. Science 2002, 295, 1476–1477.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ehebauer, M.; Hayward, P.; Arias, A.M. Notch, a Universal Arbiter of Cell Fate Decisions. Science 2006, 314, 1414–1415.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Kurz, T.; Pintard, L.; Willis, J.H.; Hamill, D.R.; Gönczy, P.; Peter, M.; Bowerman, B. Cytoskeletal Regulation by the Nedd8 Ubiquitin-like Protein Modification Pathway. Science 2002, 295, 1294–1298.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Vaseghi, S.V. Advanced Digital Signal Processing and Noise Reduction; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2006; ISBN 9780470094969.

An edited book

Handbook of Neurochemistry and Molecular Neurobiology: Degenerative Diseases of the Nervous System; Lajtha, A., Youdim, M.B.H., Riederer, P., Mandel, S.A., Battistin, L., Eds.; Springer US: Boston, MA, 2007; ISBN 9780387303444.

A chapter in an edited book

Shen, Z.-J. Progress in Binary Medium Modeling of Geological Materials. In Modern Trends in Geomechanics; Wu, W., Yu, H.-S., Eds.; Springer Proceedings in Physics; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2006; pp. 77–99 ISBN 9783540251354.

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 Computers.

Blog post

Luntz, S. Galactic Cluster’s Mass Mapped With Unprecedented Precision Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/space/galactic-clusters-mass-mapped-unprecedented-precision/ (accessed on 30 October 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 Air Traffic Control: Remote Radar for Grand Junction; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1996;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Beasley, C.A. Investigations of Redox-Labeled Silica and Gold Nanoparticles in Solution and as Films on Electrodes. Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina: Chapel Hill, NC, 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

Roach, M. Not an Accident. New York Times 2016, BR8.

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	Computers
ISSN (online)	2073-431X
Scope