How to format your references using the Materials Today citation style

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

R. Dalton, Nature 422 (2003) 102.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

B.H. Lee, A. Amon, Science 300 (2003) 482–486.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

T. Brun, I. Devetak, M.-H. Hsieh, Science 314 (2006) 436–439.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

A.R.S. Kandada, G. Grancini, A. Petrozza, S. Perissinotto, D. Fazzi, S.S.K. Raavi, G. Lanzani, Sci. Rep. 3 (2013) 2073.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

G. Zarbock, S. Lynch, A. Ammann, S. Ringer, Mindfulness for Therapists, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2014.

An edited book

[1]

R. Badonnel, R. Koch, A. Pras, M. Drašar, B. Stiller, eds., Management and Security in the Age of Hyperconnectivity: 10th IFIP WG 6.6 International Conference on Autonomous Infrastructure, Management, and Security, AIMS 2016, Munich, Germany, June 20-23, 2016, Proceedings, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

T. Wilkinson, M. Butler, J. Colley, in: F. Ortmeier, A. Rauzy (Eds.), Model-Based Safety and Assessment: 4th International Symposium, IMBSA 2014, Munich, Germany, October 27-29, 2014. Proceedings, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2014, pp. 43–56.

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 Today.

Blog post

[1]

J. Davis, IFLScience (2016).

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, Digital Television Transition: Information on the Implementation of the Converter Box Subsidy Program and Consumer Participation in the Program, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2008.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

M. von Eggers, Searching for a Post-Jungian Psychophysical Reality in Recovery from Addiction, Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2017.

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]

K. Feeney, New York Times (2008) NJ16.

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 Today
Abbreviation	Mater. Today (Kidlington)
ISSN (print)	1369-7021
Scope	Mechanical Engineering Mechanics of Materials General Materials Science Condensed Matter Physics