How to format your references using the Materials and Structures citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Materials and Structures. 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

White MF (2015) Longevity: Mapping the path to a longer life. Nature 524:170–171

A journal article with 2 authors

Parisien M, Major F (2008) The MC-Fold and MC-Sym pipeline infers RNA structure from sequence data. Nature 452:51–55

A journal article with 3 authors

Yudkovsky N, Ranish JA, Hahn S (2000) A transcription reinitiation intermediate that is stabilized by activator. Nature 408:225–229

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Sideris PJ, Nielsen UG, Gan Z, Grey CP (2008) Mg/Al ordering in layered double hydroxides revealed by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy. Science 321:113–117

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rees PA (2011) An Introduction to Zoo Biology and Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Lai TL (2008) Statistical Models and Methods for Financial Markets. Springer, New York, NY

A chapter in an edited book

Jamieson AM, Farlik M, Decker T (2012) How Stats Interact with the Molecular Machinery of Transcriptional Activation. In: Decker T, Müller M (eds) Jak-Stat Signaling : From Basics to Disease. Springer, Vienna, pp 65–89

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 Materials and Structures.

Blog post

Davis J (2016) Newly Formulated Liquid Aspirin Claimed To Be Able To Pass Through Blood-Brain Barrier. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/newly-formulated-liquid-aspirin-claimed-to-be-able-to-pass-through-bloodbrain-barrier/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1999) Federal Aviation Administration: Issues Concerning the Reauthorization of Aviation Programs. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Sumi SJ (2015) Eco-Hydrology Driven Evaluation of Statistically Downscaled Precipitation CMIP5 Climate Model Simulations over Louisiana. Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana

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

McKINLEY JC Jr, Baker AL (2016) Quest for New Life Ends in Tangle of Gang Ties. New York Times A1

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	Materials and Structures
Abbreviation	Mater. Struct.
ISSN (print)	1359-5997
ISSN (online)	1871-6873
Scope	Civil and Structural Engineering Mechanics of Materials Building and Construction General Materials Science