How to format your references using the Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A. 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	Download the output style file
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]

G. Gibson, Human genetics. GTEx detects genetic effects, Science. 348 (2015) 640–641.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

R.M. Schultz, C.J. Williams, The science of ART, Science. 296 (2002) 2188–2190.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J. Lee, S.P. Gross, J. Lee, Improved network community structure improves function prediction, Sci. Rep. 3 (2013) 2197.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

B. Doiron, M.J. Chacron, L. Maler, A. Longtin, J. Bastian, Inhibitory feedback required for network oscillatory responses to communication but not prey stimuli, Nature. 421 (2003) 539–543.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

V. Levitin, High Temperature Strain of Metals and Alloys, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, FRG, 2005.

An edited book

[1]

F. Capasso, Fitofarmacovigilanza: Vigilanza sulla sicurezza dei prodotti fitoterapici, Springer, Milano, 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

D. Angluin, J. Aspnes, D. Eisenstat, Fast Computation by Population Protocols with a Leader, in: S. Dolev (Ed.), Distributed Computing: 20th International Symposium, DISC 2006, Stockholm, Sweden, September 18-20, 2006. Proceedings, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2006: pp. 61–75.

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 Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A.

Blog post

[1]

D. Andrew, Gut Feeling: How Your Microbiota Affects Your Mood, Sleep And Stress Levels, IFLScience. (2016). https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/gut-feeling-how-your-microbiota-affects-your-mood-sleep-and-stress-levels/ (accessed October 30, 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, Internal Controls Over the Automatic Data Processing System Used by the Travelers Insurance Company in Making Medicare Payments, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1969.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

J.L. Eastwood, The effects of an interdisciplinary undergraduate human biology program on socioscientific reasoning, content learning, and understanding of inquiry, Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 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]

A.R. Chow, M. Paulson, ‘The Glass Menagerie’ To Close Early, New York Times. (2017) 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	Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series A
Abbreviation	J. Comb. Theory Ser. A.
ISSN (print)	0097-3165
Scope	Computational Theory and Mathematics Discrete Mathematics and Combinatorics Theoretical Computer Science