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]

Butler D. Developing-world health: the fightback starts here. Nature. 2003;426:754.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Vyleta NP, Jonas P. Loose coupling between Ca2+ channels and release sensors at a plastic hippocampal synapse. Science. 2014;343:665–670.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Santamaría L, Diaz M, Valladares F. Science in Europe. Dark clouds over Spanish science. Science. 2013;340:1292.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Tahirov TH, Temiakov D, Anikin M, et al. Structure of a T7 RNA polymerase elongation complex at 2.9 A resolution. Nature. 2002;420:43–50.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Pompian MM. Advising Ultra-Affluent Clients and Family Offices. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2009.

An edited book

[1]

Huang S. Real and Complex Clifford Analysis. Qiao YY, Wen GC, editors. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Martin AJ. Are These Testing Times, or Is It a Time to Test? Considering the Place of Tests in Students’ Academic Development. In: Proctor H, Brownlee P, Freebody P, editors. Controversies in Education: Orthodoxy and Heresy in Policy and Practice. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. p. 55–62.

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]

Andrews R. Hunter Killed After Shot Elephant Falls Over And Crushes Him [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/hunter-killed-after-shot-elephant-falls-over-and-crushes-him/.

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. Telecommunications: Interruptions of Telephone Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1993. Report No.: RCED-93-79FS. .

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Beard JA. Evidence of Leadership Competencies in the Journal of Mary Easton Sibley, a Pioneering 19th Century Women’s College Founder [Doctoral dissertation]. [ St. Charles, MO]: Lindenwood University; 2014.

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]

Hubbard B, MacFARQUHAR N. New Cease-Fire Begins in Syria, but Violations Are Reported Within Hours. New York Times. 2016 Dec 29;A13.

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