How to format your references using the IET Software citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for IET Software. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

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Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.
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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
Ramtani, S.: ‘Materials science. How to be both strong and thermally stable’Science, 2013, 342, (6156), pp. 320–321.
A journal article with 2 authors
1
Pitt, J.N., Ferré-D’Amaré, A.R.: ‘Rapid construction of empirical RNA fitness landscapes’Science, 2010, 330, (6002), pp. 376–379.
A journal article with 3 authors
1
Savrasov, S.Y., Kotliar, G., Abrahams, E.: ‘Correlated electrons in delta-plutonium within a dynamical mean-field picture’Nature, 2001, 410, (6830), pp. 793–795.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1
Bourgoin, M., Ouellette, N.T., Xu, H., Berg, J., Bodenschatz, E.: ‘The role of pair dispersion in turbulent flow’Science, 2006, 311, (5762), pp. 835–838.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1
Ratzliff, A., Unutzer, J., Katon, W., Stephens, K.A.: ‘Integrated Care’ (John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 2015)
An edited book
1
Allen, C.: ‘The Essential Guide to Open Source Flash Development’ (Apress, 2008)
A chapter in an edited book
1
Conejo, A.J., Baringo, L., Kazempour, S.J., Siddiqui, A.S.: ‘Investment in Production Capacity’, in Baringo Morales, L., Kazempour, S.J., Siddiqui, A.S. (Eds.): ‘Investment in Electricity Generation and Transmission: Decision Making under Uncertainty’ (Springer International Publishing, 2016), pp. 169–227

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 IET Software.

Blog post
1
O`Callaghan, J.: ‘New Horizons Returns Stunning Image Of Charon That Includes A “Mountain In A Moat”’, https://www.iflscience.com/space/new-horizons-returns-stunning-close-image-charon-includes-mountain-moat/, accessed 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
1
Government Accountability Office: ‘Information Technology: VA Actions Needed to Implement Critical Reforms’ (U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1
Lurz, J.P.: ‘Using Simplified Models and Limited-Horizon Planning to React to Time-Critical Problems’. Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University, 2019

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
Hodara, S.: ‘Affordability in a Bucolic Setting’New York Times, 2016, p. RE17.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

This sentence cites one reference [2].
This sentence cites two references [2, 4].
This sentence cites four references [2, 4, 6, 8].

About the journal

Full journal titleIET Software
AbbreviationIET Softw.
ISSN (print)1751-8806
ScopeComputer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design

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