How to format your references using the Journal of Combinatorics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Combinatorics. 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

[1]

Armitage, P J (2013 ). Astronomy. A trap for planet formation. Science. 340 1179–80

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Wolpert, L and Szathmáry, E (2002 ). Multicellularity: evolution and the egg. Nature. 420 745

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Gélinas, Y, Baldock, J A and Hedges, J I (2001 ). Organic carbon composition of marine sediments: effect of oxygen exposure on oil generation potential. Science. 294 145–8

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Rasch, B, Büchel, C, Gais, S and Born, J (2007 ). Odor cues during slow-wave sleep prompt declarative memory consolidation. Science. 315 1426–9

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Cyr, K S (2010 ). Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 Administration. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, IN, USA

An edited book

[1]

(2015 ). Bread and Roses: Voices of Australian Academics from the Working Class. SensePublishers, Rotterdam

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Stanley, J (2016 ). A Future Not So Golden: Liberalization, Mechanization and Conflict in Arni’s Gold Ornaments Cluster. Middle India and Urban-Rural Development: Four Decades of Change. Springer India, New Delhi. 131–50

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 Combinatorics.

Blog post

[1]

Luntz, S (2015 ). Globular Clusters Could Produce Binary Black Holes. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/globular-clusters-could-produce-binary-black-holes/

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 (2009 ). Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites: Acquisition Is Under Way, but Improvements Needed in Management and Oversight. 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

[1]

Pan, S (2014 ). Cybersecurity Testing and Intrusion Detection for Cyber-Physical Power Systems. Doctoral dissertation. Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS

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]

Barron, J (2017 ). The Coda to a Remarkable Career: Barbara Cook Has Retired. New York Times. A19

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 Combinatorics
Abbreviation	J. Comb.
ISSN (print)	2156-3527
ISSN (online)	2150-959X
Scope

Research and Writing Guides