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

Endo, M.: Obituary: Setsuro Ebashi (1922-2006), Nature, 442, 996, 2006.

A journal article with 2 authors

Guydosh, N. R. and Block, S. M.: Direct observation of the binding state of the kinesin head to the microtubule, Nature, 461, 125–128, 2009.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sparks, R. S. J., Biggs, J., and Neuberg, J. W.: Geophysics. Monitoring volcanoes, Science, 335, 1310–1311, 2012.

A journal article with 100 or more authors

Christiaen, L., Davidson, B., Kawashima, T., Powell, W., Nolla, H., Vranizan, K., and Levine, M.: The transcription/migration interface in heart precursors of Ciona intestinalis, Science, 320, 1349–1352, 2008.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Dujmović, D., Androić, B., and Lukačević, I.: Composite Structures According to Eurocode 4, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2014.

An edited book

Park, Y. I. and Lee, S. K. (Eds.): New Perspectives on Aloe, Springer US, Boston, MA, X, 200 p. 85 illus., 21 illus. in color pp., 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

Yao, X.: Unpacking and Understanding Evolutionary Algorithms, in: Advances in Computational Intelligence: IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence, WCCI 2012, Brisbane, Australia, June 10-15, 2012. Plenary/Invited Lectures, edited by: Liu, J., Alippi, C., Bouchon-Meunier, B., Greenwood, G. W., and Abbass, H. A., Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 60–76, 2012.

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

Price Of Ivory In China Crashes As Demand Continues To Fall: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/price-of-ivory-in-china-crashes-as-demand-continues-to-fall/, 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: Air Ambulance: Data Collection and Transparency Needed to Enhance DOT Oversight, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2017.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Mohajer, R.: A transcendental approach to John Coltrane: applying concepts of spirituality to Giant Steps into the Cosmos, Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 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

Walsh, M. W.: Lew Visits Puerto Rico and Urges Federal Help, New York Times, 21st January, B3, 2016.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Endo, 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Endo, 2006; Guydosh and Block, 2009).

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

Two authors: (Guydosh and Block, 2009)
Three or more authors: (Christiaen et al., 2008)

About the journal

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

Research and Writing Guides