How to format your references using the Foundations of Physics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Foundations of Physics. 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.: Rank clocks. Nature. 444, 592–596 (2006)

A journal article with 2 authors

Brazeau, M.D., Ahlberg, P.E.: Tetrapod-like middle ear architecture in a Devonian fish. Nature. 439, 318–321 (2006)

A journal article with 3 authors

Cuello, L.G., Cortes, D.M., Perozo, E.: Molecular architecture of the KvAP voltage-dependent K+ channel in a lipid bilayer. Science. 306, 491–495 (2004)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Choi, J.-H., Sim, S.-E., Kim, J.-I., Choi, D.I., Oh, J., Ye, S., Lee, J., Kim, T., Ko, H.-G., Lim, C.-S., Kaang, B.-K.: Interregional synaptic maps among engram cells underlie memory formation. Science. 360, 430–435 (2018)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Shi, Z.-J.: Homogeneous Catalysis for Unreactive Bond Activation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2014)

An edited book

Johannes, W.J.: Gravity Interpretation: Fundamentals and Application of Gravity Inversion and Geological Interpretation. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2009)

A chapter in an edited book

Chen, C., Chen, J., Lim, H.W., Zhang, Z., Feng, D.: Combined Public-Key Schemes: The Case of ABE and ABS. In: Takagi, T., Wang, G., Qin, Z., Jiang, S., and Yu, Y. (eds.) Provable Security: 6th International Conference, ProvSec 2012, Chengdu, China, September 26-28, 2012. Proceedings. pp. 53–69. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2012)

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 Foundations of Physics.

Blog post

Fang, J.: Fossil of Earliest Known Baboon Unearthed in South Africa

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: Bigeye Bomb: An Evaluation of DOD’s Chemical and Developmental Tests. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1986)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Chung, D.: Health Information Infrastructure: Flows and Frictions, (2017)

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

Stewart, J.B.: New Chief Portrays A Kinder, Gentler Uber, (2017)

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	Foundations of Physics
Abbreviation	Found. Phys.
ISSN (print)	0015-9018
ISSN (online)	1572-9516
Scope	General Physics and Astronomy