How to format your references using the Materials Today Physics citation style

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

G. Benford, Where might it lead?, Nature. 414 (2001) 399.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

L. Jiao, X. Liu, Structural basis of histone H3K27 trimethylation by an active polycomb repressive complex 2, Science. 350 (2015) aac4383.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

L.R. Meza, S. Das, J.R. Greer, Strong, lightweight, and recoverable three-dimensional ceramic nanolattices, Science. 345 (2014) 1322–1326.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Y. Shi, Y. Wang, J.I. Wong, A.Y.S. Tan, C.-L. Hsu, L.-J. Li, Y.-C. Lu, H.Y. Yang, Self-assembly of hierarchical MoSx/CNT nanocomposites (2<x<3): towards high performance anode materials for lithium ion batteries, Sci. Rep. 3 (2013) 2169.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

J. Sommers-Flanagan, R. Sommers-Flanagan, Tough Kids Cool Counseling, American Counseling Association, Alexandria, VA, USA, 2015.

An edited book

[1]

S. Plein, Cardiovascular MR Manual, Springer, London, 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

S.H. Klempe, Catalysis, Functional Explanations and Functionalism in Psychology, in: K.R. Cabell, J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Catalyzing Mind: Beyond Models of Causality, Springer, New York, NY, 2014: pp. 71–92.

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 Physics.

Blog post

[1]

J. Davis, Bats Cock Their Heads In An Adorable Way To Help Them Hunt Better, IFLScience. (2016). https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/bats-cock-their-heads-in-an-adorable-way-to-help-them-hunt-better/ (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, Army Logistics: Better Approach Needed to Identify Systemic Causes of Problem Parts, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1993.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

J. Shimazoe, The power of forgotten opinions: Why an organization chooses inaction over the public’s safety, Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina, 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]

E. Dash, Standard & Poor’s Lowers More Ratings, New York Times. (2011) B9.

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 Physics
ISSN (print)	2542-5293
Scope