How to format your references using the Liquid Crystals Today citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Liquid Crystals Today. 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

[1]

Vedral V. A better than perfect match. Nature. 2006;439:397.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Sato M, Sato K. Degradation of paternal mitochondria by fertilization-triggered autophagy in C. elegans embryos. Science. 2011;334:1141–1144.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Yonekura K, Maki-Yonekura S, Namba K. Complete atomic model of the bacterial flagellar filament by electron cryomicroscopy. Nature. 2003;424:643–650.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Boamfa MI, Kim MW, Maan JC, et al. Observation of surface and bulk phase transitions in nematic liquid crystals. Nature. 2003;421:149–152.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Weverka P. Microsoft® PowerPoint® 2010 All-in-One for Dummies®. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

[1]

Guzzo TJ, Drach GW, Wein AJ, editors. Primer of Geriatric Urology. New York, NY: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Ribes R, Iannarelli P, Duarte RF. Writing a Manuscript. In: Iannarelli P, Duarte RF, editors. English for Biomedical Scientists. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 74–93.

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 Liquid Crystals Today.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. WHO Declares Ebola A Public Health Emergency [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/who-declares-ebola-public-health-emergency/.

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. Postsecondary Education: Student Outcomes Vary at For-Profit, Nonprofit, and Public Schools. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2011. Report No.: GAO-12-143. .

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Graham SM. Conditions that Prompt the Migrant Worker Population to Access Pre-Hospital Emergency Care in Place of Health Centers in Qatar [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2017.

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]

Kishkovsky S. Russian Cancels Pardon Request In Chechen Case. New York Times. 2004 Sep 22;A12.

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	Liquid Crystals Today
Abbreviation	Liq. Cryst. Today
ISSN (print)	1358-314X
ISSN (online)	1464-5181
Scope	Inorganic Chemistry Materials Chemistry Condensed Matter Physics