How to format your references using the Meccanica citation style

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

Brown D (2012) Mutant flu - the view from the newsroom. Nature 485:7

A journal article with 2 authors

Davies NB, Welbergen JA (2009) Social transmission of a host defense against cuckoo parasitism. Science 324:1318–1320

A journal article with 3 authors

Chen J, Rashid T, Feng G (2014) Esterase in imported fire ants, Solenopsis invicta and S. richteri (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): activity, kinetics and variation. Sci Rep 4:7112

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Sung NS, Gordon JI, Rose GD, et al (2003) Science education. Educating future scientists. Science 301:1485

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Putt A (2006) Putt’s Law & the Successful Technocrat. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Andrade C, Gulikers J, Polder R (2015) Durability of Reinforced Concrete from Composition to Protection: Selected Papers of the 6th International RILEM PhD Workshop held in Delft, The Netherlands, July 4-5, 2013. Springer International Publishing, Cham

A chapter in an edited book

Serra M, Correia C, Brito C, Alves PM (2014) Bioprocessing of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells for Cell Therapy Applications. In: Al-Rubeai M, Naciri M (eds) Stem Cells and Cell Therapy. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 71–95

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 Meccanica.

Blog post

Andrew E (2017) Couple Films Kayaker Being Attacked By A Shark In Monterey Bay, California. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/couple-films-kayaker-being-attacked/. Accessed 30 Oct 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

Government Accountability Office (2012) Review of FAA’s Collegiate Training Initiative as Mandated in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Rodriguez Gamez LI (2012) New perspectives on the spatial analysis of urban employment distribution and commuting patterns: The cases of Hermosillo and Ciudad Obregon, Mexico. Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona

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

Cowen T (2016) A Slowdown That Silicon Valley Doesn’t Believe. New York Times BU6

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	Meccanica
Abbreviation	Meccanica
ISSN (print)	0025-6455
ISSN (online)	1572-9648
Scope	Mechanical Engineering Mechanics of Materials Condensed Matter Physics