How to format your references using the Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing citation style

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

[1]

P. Morrison, Tales behind the tags, Nature 413 (2001) 461.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

M.C. Frank, N.D. Goodman, Predicting pragmatic reasoning in language games, Science 336 (2012) 998.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

D. Garlaschelli, G. Caldarelli, L. Pietronero, Universal scaling relations in food webs, Nature 423 (2003) 165–168.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

R.B. Jackson, S.T. Berthrong, C.W. Cook, E.G. Jobbágy, R.L. McCulley, Comment on “A reservoir of nitrate beneath desert soils,” Science 304 (2004) 51; author reply 51.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

V. Cunningham, Victorian Poetry Now, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2011.

An edited book

[1]

H. Koenitz, T.I. Sezen, G. Ferri, M. Haahr, D. Sezen, G. C̨atak, eds., Interactive Storytelling: 6th International Conference, ICIDS 2013, Istanbul, Turkey, November 6-9, 2013, Proceedings, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

H. Siegel, Epistemological Diversity and Education Research: Much Ado About Nothing Much?, in: C.W. Ruitenberg, D.C. Phillips (Eds.), Education, Culture and Epistemological Diversity: Mapping a Disputed Terrain, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2012: pp. 65–84.

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 Systems and Signal Processing.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Diet Drinks Linked To Expanding Waistlines In Older Adults, IFLScience (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/diet-drinks-linked-expanding-waistlines-older-adults/ (accessed October 30, 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, ADP Planning: Challenges at the U.S. Transportation Command, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

R. Ciolek, A Mixed Method Study on the Missouri Beginning Teachers Assistance Program and Teacher Retention in Saint Louis School Districts, Doctoral dissertation, Lindenwood University, 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

[1]

J. Williams, Hamilton Minus Music, New York Times (2017) BR4.

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	Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing
Abbreviation	Mech. Syst. Signal Process.
ISSN (print)	0888-3270
Scope	Computer Science Applications Signal Processing Aerospace Engineering Civil and Structural Engineering Control and Systems Engineering Mechanical Engineering