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

Smil V V (2000) Jumbo. Nature 406:239

A journal article with 2 authors

Olson JW, Maier RJ (2002) Molecular hydrogen as an energy source for Helicobacter pylori. Science 298:1788–1790

A journal article with 3 authors

McCord TB, Hansen GB, Hibbitts CA (2001) Hydrated salt minerals on Ganymede’s surface: evidence of an ocean below. Science 292:1523–1525

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Hunte C, Screpanti E, Venturi M, et al (2005) Structure of a Na+/H+ antiporter and insights into mechanism of action and regulation by pH. Nature 435:1197–1202

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ghaye T (2008) Building the Reflective Healthcare Organisation. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK

An edited book

Lee PJ, Cheon JH (2009) Information Security and Cryptology – ICISC 2008: 11th International Conference, Seoul, Korea, December 3-5, 2008, Revised Selected Papers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Crea F, De Stefano C, Foti C, et al (2016) Alkali Metal Ion Complexes with Phosphates, Nucleotides, Amino Acids, and Related Ligands of Biological Relevance. Their Properties in Solution. In: Sigel A, Sigel H, Sigel RKO (eds) The Alkali Metal Ions: Their Role for Life. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 133–166

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

Hale T (2016) Watch Slime Molds Recreate The Intro To Game Of Thrones. In: IFLScience. 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 (2004) Federal Aviation Administration: Challenges for Transforming Into a High-Performing Organization. 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

Villanueva R (2015) Issues of performance practice: The influence of Franz Strauss upon Richard Strauss’s Horn Concerto No. 1. 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

Mele C (2017) Firearms and Drivers, A Lethal Combination. New York Times 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	Meccanica
Abbreviation	Meccanica
ISSN (print)	0025-6455
ISSN (online)	1572-9648
Scope	Mechanical Engineering Mechanics of Materials Condensed Matter Physics

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