How to format your references using the Materials Research Bulletin citation style

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

M. Ashwell, Elsie Widdowson (1906-2000), Nature. 406 (2000) 844.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

N. Butchart, A.A. Scaife, Removal of chlorofluorocarbons by increased mass exchange between the stratosphere and troposphere in a changing climate, Nature. 410 (2001) 799–802.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

D. Nandy, A. Muñoz-Jaramillo, P.C.H. Martens, The unusual minimum of sunspot cycle 23 caused by meridional plasma flow variations, Nature. 471 (2011) 80–82.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

C. Xuan, H. Li, J.-X. Zhao, H.-W. Wang, Y. Wang, C.-P. Ning, Z. Liu, B.-B. Zhang, G.-W. He, L.-M. Lun, Association between MTHFR polymorphisms and congenital heart disease: a meta-analysis based on 9,329 cases and 15,076 controls, Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 7311.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

J.E. Martin, Physics for Radiation Protection, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2013.

An edited book

[1]

A. Koslow, A. Buchsbaum, eds., The Road to Universal Logic: Festschrift for the 50th Birthday of Jean-Yves Béziau Volume II, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

L.J. Santodonato, P.K. Liaw, Advanced Characterization Techniques, in: M.C. Gao, J.-W. Yeh, P.K. Liaw, Y. Zhang (Eds.), High-Entropy Alloys: Fundamentals and Applications, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016: pp. 115–150.

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 Research Bulletin.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Climate Change and Pollution Threaten Future Food Supplies, IFLScience. (2014). https://www.iflscience.com/environment/climate-change-and-pollution-threaten-future-food-supplies/ (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, U.S. Science and Engineering Base: A Synthesis of Concerns About Budget and Policy Development, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

A. Ouyang, Embryonic Stem Cell Culture in Fibrous Bed Bioreactor, Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2006.

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]

J. Wogan, In Store; No Red, No Blue, New York Times. (2017) ST3.

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 Research Bulletin
Abbreviation	Mater. Res. Bull.
ISSN (print)	0025-5408
Scope	Mechanical Engineering Mechanics of Materials General Materials Science Condensed Matter Physics

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