How to format your references using the Materials Characterization citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Materials Characterization. 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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]

F.B.M. de Waal, Darwin’s last laugh, Nature 460 (2009) 175.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

L.R. Kump, D. Pollard, Amplification of Cretaceous warmth by biological cloud feedbacks, Science 320 (2008) 195.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

A. Basole, L.E. White, D. Fitzpatrick, Mapping multiple features in the population response of visual cortex, Nature 423 (2003) 986–990.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

K. Takatsu, K. Miyaoku, S.R. Roy, Y. Murono, T. Sago, H. Itagaki, M. Nakamura, T. Tokumoto, Induction of female-to-male sex change in adult zebrafish by aromatase inhibitor treatment, Sci. Rep. 3 (2013) 3400.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

R. Mahlberg, A. Gilles, A. Läsch, Hämatologie, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2004.

An edited book

[1]

E. Grossi, F. Pace, eds., Human Nutrition from the Gastroenterologist’s Perspective: Lessons from Expo Milano 2015, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

J.C.P. Pupo, J.C.P. Pupo, J.C.P. Pupo, R.R. Escobar, E.G. Mejia, C. de la Rosa Pérez, Air Space and Bronchi – II, in: J.C. Pedrozo Pupo (Ed.), Learning Chest Imaging, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013: pp. 107–133.

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 Characterization.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, How Small Birds Evolved From Giant Meat Eating Dinosaurs, IFLScience (2014). https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/how-small-birds-evolved-giant-meat-eating-dinosaurs/ (accessed October 30, 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, K-12 Education: School-Based Physical Education and Sports Programs, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2012.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

C. Barrett, Racial congruence and its effects on social integration and school involvement: A multi-level model, Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2010.

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]

S. Dominus, Something Was Wrong, New York Times (2016) BR12.

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 Characterization
Abbreviation	Mater. Charact.
ISSN (print)	1044-5803
Scope	Mechanical Engineering Mechanics of Materials General Materials Science Condensed Matter Physics