How to format your references using the Empirical Software Engineering citation style

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

Jensen MC (2015) IMMUNOLOGY. Synthetic immunobiology boosts the IQ of T cells. Science 350:514–515

A journal article with 2 authors

Rikken GL, Raupach E (2000) Enantioselective magnetochiral photochemistry. Nature 405:932–935

A journal article with 3 authors

Quinto-Su PA, Suzuki M, Ohl C-D (2014) Fast temperature measurement following single laser-induced cavitation inside a microfluidic gap. Sci Rep 4:5445

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Baker AC, Starger CJ, McClanahan TR, Glynn PW (2004) Coral reefs: corals’ adaptive response to climate change. Nature 430:741

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Celant G, Broniatowski M (2017) Interpolation and Extrapolation Optimal Designs 2. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Belli RF (ed) (2012) True and False Recovered Memories: Toward a Reconciliation of the Debate, 1st edn. Springer, New York, NY

A chapter in an edited book

Aoki S (2008) Descartes and Locke on the Nature of Matter: a Note. In: Hutton S, Schuurman P (eds) Studies on Locke: Sources, Contemporaries, and Legacy. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 75–88

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 Empirical Software Engineering.

Blog post

Luntz S (2015) Flashy Fish Don’t Get Lucky. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/flashy-fish-dont-get-lucky/. 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 (2011) Telecommunications: Competition, Capacity, and Costs in the Fixed Satellite Services Industry. 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

Rodman RA (2010) Casual factors that contribute to gender bias in career choice among junior high school age females. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

McKINLEY JC Jr (2017) Plea Deal For Woman In Spitzer Case. New York Times A25

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Jensen 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Rikken and Raupach 2000; Jensen 2015).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Rikken and Raupach 2000)
Three or more authors: (Baker et al. 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	Empirical Software Engineering
Abbreviation	Empir. Softw. Eng.
ISSN (print)	1382-3256
ISSN (online)	1573-7616
Scope	Software