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

Sharon M (2013) Biochemistry. Structural MS pulls its weight. Science 340:1059–1060

A journal article with 2 authors

Ullman KS, Powers MA (2015) STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY. Locking down the core of the pore. Science 350:33–34

A journal article with 3 authors

Ambrose KV, Koppenhöfer AM, Belanger FC (2014) Horizontal gene transfer of a bacterial insect toxin gene into the Epichloë fungal symbionts of grasses. Sci Rep 4:5562

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Sikora D, Rocheleau L, Brown EG, Pelchat M (2014) Deep sequencing reveals the eight facets of the influenza A/HongKong/1/1968 (H3N2) virus cap-snatching process. Sci Rep 4:6181

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sewell G (2005) Computational Methods of Linear Algebra. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Nowobilska M (2014) Potsdamer Platz: The Reshaping of Berlin. Springer International Publishing, Cham

A chapter in an edited book

Zarubaev VV, Belousova I, Rylkov V, et al (2008) Photodynamic Inactivation of Enveloped Viruses by Fullerene: Study of Efficacy and Safety. In: Cataldo F, Ros TD (eds) Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacological Potential of Fullerenes and Carbon Nanotubes. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 107–121

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

Fang J (2015) Were Beethoven’s Masterpieces Influenced by a Cardiac Arrhythmia? In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/were-beethovens-masterpieces-influenced-cardiac-arrhythmia/. 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 (2010) Aviation Research: Airport Cooperative Research Program Addresses Many Needs but Could Enhance Transparency and Clarify Scope of Research Role. 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

Szurley JC (2010) The use of edge detection techniques to analyze thoracoabdominal movement and infer breathing volume. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Schmidt S (2016) In City Rich in History, Unusual Plan to Preserve Poet’s Home. New York Times A24

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