How to format your references using the Engineering citation style

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

[1]

Kemp M. The harmonious hand. Marin Mersenne and the science of memorized music. Nature 2001;409:666.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Xiong W, Ferrell JE Jr. A positive-feedback-based bistable “memory module” that governs a cell fate decision. Nature 2003;426:460–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Tomonaga M, Uwano Y, Saito T. How dolphins see the world: a comparison with chimpanzees and humans. Sci Rep 2014;4:3717.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Luo J, Wang X, Li S, Liu J, Guo Y, Niu G, et al. Efficient and stable emission of warm-white light from lead-free halide double perovskites. Nature 2018;563:541–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Wesche R. Physical Properties of High-Temperature Superconductors. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2015.

An edited book

[1]

Chrisment I, Couch A, Badonnel R, Waldburger M, editors. Managing the Dynamics of Networks and Services: 5th International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure, Management, and Security, AIMS 2011, Nancy, France, June 13-17, 2011. Proceedings. vol. 6734. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Pakray P, Pal S, Poria S, Bandyopadhyay S, Gelbukh A. SMSFR: SMS-Based FAQ Retrieval System. In: Batyrshin I, Mendoza MG, editors. Advances in Computational Intelligence: 11th Mexican International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, MICAI 2012, San Luis Potosí, Mexico, October 27 – November 4, 2012. Revised Selected Papers, Part II, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013, p. 36–45.

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 Engineering.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. Breast Cancer Campaigns Might Be Pink, But Men Get It Too. IFLScience 2016.

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

[1]

Government Accountability Office. Comments on Proposed FPR Subpart. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1981.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Liao W. The epitope specificity of the human anti-Candida albicans antibody M1g1. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, 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

[1]

Sisario B. Streisand’s ‘Encore’ Tops Album Chart. New York Times 2016:C3.

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	Engineering
Abbreviation	Engineering (Beijing)
ISSN (print)	2095-8099
Scope	General Chemical Engineering General Computer Science Energy Engineering and Power Technology General Engineering Environmental Engineering Materials Science (miscellaneous)

Research and Writing Guides