How to format your references using the Journal of Structural Engineering citation style

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

Fields, R. D. 2014. “Neuroscience. Myelin--more than insulation.” Science, 344 (6181): 264–266.

A journal article with 2 authors

Heilbron, J. L., and W. F. Bynum. 2003. “1903 and all that.” Nature, 421 (6918): 15–18.

A journal article with 3 authors

Di Matteo, T., V. Springel, and L. Hernquist. 2005. “Energy input from quasars regulates the growth and activity of black holes and their host galaxies.” Nature, 433 (7026): 604–607.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Cao, C.-Y., Y.-Y. Shen, J.-D. Wang, L. Li, and G.-L. Liang. 2013. “Controlled intracellular self-assembly of gadolinium nanoparticles as smart molecular MR contrast agents.” Sci. Rep., 3: 1024.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bleistein, S. 2017. Rapid Organizational Change. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Li, S. Z., and A. K. Jain (Eds.). 2011. Handbook of Face Recognition. London: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Schein, M., S. Sajja, and H. U. Elben. 2007. “Diagnostica per immagini per lo studio dell’addome.” Chirurgia addominale d’urgenza: il buon senso di Schein: Guida pratica per sopravvivere nella trincea delle urgenze chirurgiche, M. Schein and P. N. Rogers, eds., 33–54. Milano: Springer.

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 Structural Engineering.

Blog post

Andrew, E. 2015. “Permafrost-Eating Bacteria: A New Twist On Thawing Arctic And Global Warming.” IFLScience. IFLScience. Accessed October 30, 2018. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/permafrost-eating-bacteria-new-twist-thawing-arctic-and-global-warming/.

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. 1974. Review of Estimate in Prime Contract N00019-71-C-0450 With Grumman Aerospace Corporation. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Hertzog, L. 2013. “Development and implementation of a prenatal postpartum depression education program for nurse practitioner students at California State University Long Beach.” Doctoral dissertation. Long Beach, CA: California State University, Long Beach.

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

Marx, L. 2016. “After a Clumsy First Kiss, Making Out Just Fine.” New York Times, November 18, 2016.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Fields 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Fields 2014; Heilbron and Bynum 2003).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Heilbron and Bynum 2003)
Three or more authors: (Cao et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Journal of Structural Engineering
Abbreviation	J. Struct. Eng. (N. Y.)
ISSN (print)	0733-9445
ISSN (online)	1943-541X
Scope	Civil and Structural Engineering Mechanical Engineering Mechanics of Materials Building and Construction General Materials Science