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

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

[1]

Owens B. Batteries. Nature. 2015;526(7575):S89.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Lohmann U, Lesins G. Stronger constraints on the anthropogenic indirect aerosol effect. Science. 2002;298(5595):1012–1015.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Pfeifer R, Lungarella M, Iida F. Self-organization, embodiment, and biologically inspired robotics. Science. 2007;318(5853):1088–1093.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Petford N, Cruden AR, McCaffrey KJ, et al. Granite magma formation, transport and emplacement in the Earth’s crust. Nature. 2000;408(6813):669–673.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Mitola J III. Software Radio Architecture. New York, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2002.

An edited book

[1]

Knols BGJ. Bridging laboratory and field research for genetic control of disease vectors. Louis C, editor. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Assaad R, Krafft C. Inequality of Opportunity in Human Development. In: Diwan I, Galal A, editors. The Middle East Economies in Times of Transition. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK; 2016. p. 131–158.

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 Letters.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. MH17 Crash Report Establishes The Cause, But Only Criminal Investigation Can Find Those Responsible. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. Air Force Stock Fund: Hydrazine Sales Consistent with the Commercial Space Launch Act. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991. Report No.: NSIAD-91-196. .

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Nguyen T. Nail technician students’ awareness of some health effects of long-term exposure to chemicals used in nail salons and their understanding of health protection [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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]

Harwood J. Republicans are battling themselves. New York Times. 2016 Oct 7;A2.

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 Letters
Abbreviation	Mater. Res. Lett.
ISSN (online)	2166-3831
Scope