How to format your references using the Journal of the Royal Society Interface citation style

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

Gleick PH. 2002 Soft water paths. Nature 418, 373.

A journal article with 2 authors

Crisp RJ, Meleady R. 2012 Adapting to a multicultural future. Science 336, 853–855.

A journal article with 3 authors

Galdi S, Arcuri L, Gawronski B. 2008 Automatic mental associations predict future choices of undecided decision-makers. Science 321, 1100–1102.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Liu Z, Yasseri AA, Lindsey JS, Bocian DF. 2003 Molecular memories that survive silicon device processing and real-world operation. Science 302, 1543–1545.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Esmailzadeh R. 2006 Broadband Wireless Communications Business. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Wen Z, Li T, editors. 2014 Knowledge Engineering and Management: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Intelligent Systems and Knowledge Engineering, Shenzhen, China, Nov 2013 (ISKE 2013). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Lim J-H, Song C-W, Chung K-Y, Rim K-W, Lee J-H. 2013 Forensic Evidence Collection Procedures of Smartphone in Crime Scene. In IT Convergence and Security 2012 (eds KJ Kim, K-Y Chung), pp. 35–41. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

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 the Royal Society Interface.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2015 DNA Tests Show Elephant Ivory Poaching has Two Main Hotspots. IFLScience. See https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/elephant-ivory-poaching-has-two-main-hotspots/ (accessed on 30 October 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. 2007 Emergency Management: Most School Districts Have Developed Emergency Management Plans, but Would Benefit from Additional Federal Guidance.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bryant TL. 2017 The Influence of High School Preparation on Black Male Students’ Ability to Succeed at the Post-Secondary Level. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Greenhouse L. 2007 ‘Bad’ Legal Advice and the Death Penalty. New York Times, 6 November. , A22.

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 the Royal Society Interface
Abbreviation	J. R. Soc. Interface
ISSN (print)	1742-5689
ISSN (online)	1742-5662
Scope	Biochemistry Biophysics Biotechnology Bioengineering Biomedical Engineering Biomaterials

Research and Writing Guides