How to format your references using the Journal of Laboratory Automation citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Laboratory Automation (JALA). 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

Shelly, D. R. Periodic, Chaotic, and Doubled Earthquake Recurrence Intervals on the Deep San Andreas Fault. Science 2010, 328, 1385–1388.

A journal article with 2 authors

Burch, C. L.; Chao, L. Evolvability of an RNA Virus Is Determined by Its Mutational Neighbourhood. Nature 2000, 406, 625–628.

A journal article with 3 authors

Maeda, H.; Norum, D. V. L.; Gallagher, T. F. Microwave Manipulation of an Atomic Electron in a Classical Orbit. Science 2005, 307, 1757–1760.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Pauly, D.; Alder, J.; Bennett, E.; et al. The Future for Fisheries. Science 2003, 302, 1359–1361.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hiltscher, G.; Mühlthaler, W.; Smits, J. Industrial Pigging Technology; Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA: Weinheim, FRG, 2003.

An edited book

Motreanu, D. Topological and Variational Methods with Applications to Nonlinear Boundary Value Problems; Motreanu, V. V.; Papageorgiou, N., Eds.; Springer: New York, NY, 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Kertesz-Farkas, A.; Kocsor, A.; Pongor, S. The Application of Data Compression-Based Distances to Biological Sequences. In Information Theory and Statistical Learning; Emmert-Streib, F.; Dehmer, M., Eds.; Springer US: Boston, MA, 2009; pp. 83–100.

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 Laboratory Automation.

Blog post

Luntz, S. Go West Young Tree – Climate Change Moves Forests In Unexpected Direction (accessed Oct 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

Government Accountability Office. Passenger Rail Security: Enhanced Federal Leadership Needed to Prioritize and Guide Security Efforts; GAO-06-181T; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2005.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Zurheide, P. K. Hydromorphology of Anomalous Bright Loamy Soils on the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park: College Park, MD, 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

Wagner, J. Loss to Nationals Brings Reminders of Early Season Demons. New York Times, 2017, B10.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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 Laboratory Automation
ISSN (print)	2211-0682
ISSN (online)	1540-2452
Scope

Research and Writing Guides