How to format your references using the Constraints citation style

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

Alexandrov, L. B. (2015). Understanding the origins of human cancer. Science (New York, N.Y.), 350(6265), 1175.

A journal article with 2 authors

Weimerskirch, H., & Wilson, R. P. (2000). Oceanic respite for wandering albatrosses. Nature, 406(6799), 955–956.

A journal article with 3 authors

Lee, S.-H., Kwan, A. C., & Dan, Y. (2014). Interneuron subtypes and orientation tuning. Nature, 508(7494), E1-2.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Pillai, R. S., Bhattacharyya, S. N., Artus, C. G., Zoller, T., Cougot, N., Basyuk, E., … Filipowicz, W. (2005). Inhibition of translational initiation by Let-7 MicroRNA in human cells. Science (New York, N.Y.), 309(5740), 1573–1576.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bunnell, T. (2016). From World City to the World in One City. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Chakraborty, G. (Ed.). (2005). Distributed Computing and Internet Technology: Second International Conference, ICDCIT 2005, Bhubaneswar, India, December 22-24, 2005. Proceedings (Vol. 3816). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Tololyan, K. (2005). Armenian Diaspora. In M. Ember, C. R. Ember, & I. Skoggard (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World (pp. 35–46). Boston, MA: Springer US.

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 Constraints.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2013, October 22). Scientists have developed a prototype for self-replicating robots. IFLScience. IFLScience. Retrieved October 30, 2018, from https://www.iflscience.com/technology/scientists-have-developed-prototype-self-replicating-robots/

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. (1994). [Request for Decision on EEOC Employee’s Claim for Transportation Expenses] (No. B-256635). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Harris, R. H. (2017). Comparing the Effects of Traditional Face-to-face, Technology-Based, and Blended Instructional Strategies in a Post-Secondary Spanish Language Learning Environment (Doctoral dissertation). Northcentral University, Scottsdale, AZ.

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

Koblin, J. (2017, May 31). After ‘Awesome’ Break, Kelly Makes Her Debut As Pillar of NBC’s Plans. New York Times, p. B2.

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	Constraints
Abbreviation	Constraints
ISSN (print)	1383-7133
ISSN (online)	1572-9354
Scope	Artificial Intelligence Computational Theory and Mathematics Software Discrete Mathematics and Combinatorics