How to format your references using the Letters in Mathematical Physics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Letters in Mathematical Physics. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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.
Komar, A.A.: Genetics. SNPs, silent but not invisible. Science. 315, 466–467 (2007)
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Crowley, T.J., Hyde, W.T.: Transient nature of late Pleistocene climate variability. Nature. 456, 226–230 (2008)
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Bierhaus, E.B., Chapman, C.R., Merline, W.J.: Secondary craters on Europa and implications for cratered surfaces. Nature. 437, 1125–1127 (2005)
A journal article with 4 or more authors
1.
Xu, X., Clark, J.M., Forster, C.A., Norell, M.A., Erickson, G.M., Eberth, D.A., Jia, C., Zhao, Q.: A basal tyrannosauroid dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of China. Nature. 439, 715–718 (2006)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Pachamanova, D.A., Fabozzi, F.J.: Portfolio Construction and Analytics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ (2016)
An edited book
1.
Ulmer, S., Jansen, O. eds: fMRI: Basics and Clinical Applications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2010)
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Sencha, A.N., Evseeva, E.V., Mogutov, M.S., Patrunov, Y.N.: Classification of Breast Masses. In: Evseeva, E.V., Mogutov, M.S., and Patrunov, Y.N. (eds.) Breast Ultrasound. pp. 123–129. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2013)

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 Letters in Mathematical Physics.

Blog post
1.
Davis, J.: It Now Looks Certain That 2016 Will Be The Hottest Year On Record, https://www.iflscience.com/environment/it-now-looks-certain-that-2016-will-be-the-hottest-year-on-record/

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: Aviation Safety: FAA Can Better Prepare General Aviation Pilots for Mountain Flying Risks. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1993)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Gindin, M.: Identification and Characterization of Putative Secreted Proteins from the Adult-Stage Hookworm, Ancylostoma caninum, (2012)

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.
Kelly, C.: ‘Big Rich Texas’ Becomes an Unlikely Reality-TV Hit, (2012)

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 titleLetters in Mathematical Physics
AbbreviationLett. Math. Phys.
ISSN (print)0377-9017
ISSN (online)1573-0530
ScopeMathematical Physics
Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

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