How to format your references using the Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering citation style

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

Segal HP (2001) Back to the future from 1888. Nature 409:563

A journal article with 2 authors

Fulton JE, Delany ME (2003) Genetics. Poultry genetic resources--operation rescue needed. Science 300:1667–1668

A journal article with 3 authors

Parkin SSP, Hayashi M, Thomas L (2008) Magnetic domain-wall racetrack memory. Science 320:190–194

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Dong Y, Mu Y, Xie Y, et al (2018) Structural basis of ubiquitin modification by the Legionella effector SdeA. Nature 557:674–678

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Reid R, Fraser-King G, Schwaderer WD (2006) Data Lifecycles. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Villani V (2011) Differential Topology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Arthur M (2016) Excellence in Research. In: Tayeb O, Zahed A, Ritzen J (eds) Becoming a World-Class University: The case of King Abdulaziz University. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 77–90

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 Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering.

Blog post

Carpineti A (2016) Space Declared LGBT-Friendly After Pride Flag Launch Stunt. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/space-declared-lgbt-friendly-after-pride-flag-launch-stunt/. 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 (1990) Federal Research: Assessment of the Financial Audit for SEMATECH’s Activities in 1988. 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

Weitkunat S (2015) Facies and Log Analysis of the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale. Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana

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

Dominus S (2017) When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy. New York Times MM29

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	Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering
Abbreviation	Innov. Syst. Softw. Eng.
ISSN (print)	1614-5046
ISSN (online)	1614-5054
Scope	Software