How to format your references using the Mechanical Sciences citation style

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

Kenyon, G.: Major UK cancer research charities to consider merger, Nature, 409, 4, 2001.

A journal article with 2 authors

Yan, Y. and Pennycook, S. J.: Atomic structure of the quasicrystal Al72Ni20Co8, Nature, 403, 266–267, 2000.

A journal article with 3 authors

Arita, I., Nakane, M., and Fenner, F.: Public health. Is polio eradication realistic?, Science, 312, 852–854, 2006.

A journal article with 100 or more authors

Kim, J., Shin, J.-Y., Kim, J.-I., Seo, J.-S., Webster, M. J., Lee, D., and Kim, S.: Somatic deletions implicated in functional diversity of brain cells of individuals with schizophrenia and unaffected controls, Sci. Rep., 4, 3807, 2014.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Karr, R.: Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2009.

An edited book

Antoniac, I. V. (Ed.): Handbook of Bioceramics and Biocomposites, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 367 illus., 214 illus. in color. eReference pp., 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Veselá, P. and Lammerer, B.: The Pfitsch-Mörchner Basin, an example of the post-Variscan sedimentary evolution in the Tauern Window (Eastern Alps), in: Orogenic Processes in the Alpine Collision Zone, edited by: Froitzheim, N. and Schmid, S. M., Birkhäuser, Basel, S73–S88, 2009.

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 Mechanical Sciences.

Blog post

Bigger Wasn’t Better For Early Humans: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/bigger-wasn-t-better-early-humans/, last access: 30 October 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: Intelligence Programs: New RC-135 Aircraft Engines Can Reduce Cost and Improve Performance, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1992.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Nagarajah, B. A.: The influence of professional training and personal factors on technostress: A correlational study, Doctoral dissertation, Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, 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

Downs, J. S., Loewenstein, G., and Wisdom, J.: Eating by the Numbers, New York Times, 13th November, A31, 2009.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Kenyon, 2001).
This sentence cites two references (Kenyon, 2001; Yan and Pennycook, 2000).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Yan and Pennycook, 2000)
Three or more authors: (Kim et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Mechanical Sciences
Abbreviation	Mech. Sci.
ISSN (print)	2191-9151
ISSN (online)	2191-916X
Scope