How to format your references using the Future Internet citation style

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

Werner, M.J. Perspective: Protect the USA from UVA. Nature 2014, 515, S126.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gheiratmand, M.; Mullen, K.T. Orientation Tuning in Human Colour Vision at Detection Threshold. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 4285.

A journal article with 3 authors

Vlemmings, W.H.T.; Diamond, P.J.; Imai, H. A Magnetically Collimated Jet from an Evolved Star. Nature 2006, 440, 58–60.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Lee, K.-H.; Lo, H.-L.; Tang, W.-C.; Hsiao, H.H.-Y.; Yang, P.-M. A Gene Expression Signature-Based Approach Reveals the Mechanisms of Action of the Chinese Herbal Medicine Berberine. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 6394.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Permyakov, E.A.; Kretsinger, R.H. Calcium Binding Proteins; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2010; ISBN 9780470872390.

An edited book

Towards a Post-Bertalanffy Systemics; Minati, G., Abram, M.R., Pessa, E., Eds.; Contemporary Systems Thinking; 1st ed. 2016.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; ISBN 9783319243894.

A chapter in an edited book

Simón Mata, A.; Bataller Torras, A.; Cabrera Carrillo, J.A.; Ezquerro Juanco, F.; Guerra Fernández, A.J.; Nadal Martínez, F.; Ortiz Fernández, A. Graphical and Analytical Methods for Dynamic Analysis of Planar Linkages. In Fundamentals of Machine Theory and Mechanisms; Bataller Torras, A., Cabrera Carrillo, J.A., Ezquerro Juanco, F., Guerra Fernández, A.J., Nadal Martínez, F., Ortiz Fernández, A., Eds.; Mechanisms and Machine Science; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2016; pp. 143–193 ISBN 9783319319681.

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 Future Internet.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Griffin the Parrot Demonstrates the Ability to Share Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/griffin-parrot-demonstrates-ability-share/ (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 Survey of the Pricing of a NASA Contract with Eldec Corporation; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1977;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gornto, J.S. The Impact of Student Leadership in Classroom Management on Student Achievement. Doctoral dissertation, Northcentral University: Scottsdale, AZ, 2009.

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

Vecsey, G. Amid Celebrations And the Cheers, Cashman Reflects. New York Times 2009, D1.

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	Future Internet
ISSN (online)	1999-5903
Scope