How to format your references using the Mechanism and Machine Theory citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Mechanism and Machine Theory. 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]

A. Chakravarti, Obituary: Victor Almon McKusick (1921-2008), Nature 455 (2008) 46.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

F. Bossuyt, M.C. Milinkovitch, Amphibians as indicators of early tertiary “out-of-India” dispersal of vertebrates, Science 292 (2001) 93–95.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J. Zikherman, R. Parameswaran, A. Weiss, Endogenous antigen tunes the responsiveness of naive B cells but not T cells, Nature 489 (2012) 160–164.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

S.E. Forde, R.E. Beardmore, I. Gudelj, S.S. Arkin, J.N. Thompson, L.D. Hurst, Understanding the limits to generalizability of experimental evolutionary models, Nature 455 (2008) 220–223.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

M. Simmons, E. Dalgleish, Corporate Actions, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Oxford, UK, 2006.

An edited book

[1]

D. Baleanu, Z.B. Guvenc, J.A.T. Machado, eds., New Trends in Nanotechnology and Fractional Calculus Applications, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

F.Z. Stanczyk, Androgen Measurements, in: R. Azziz, J.E. Nestler, D. Dewailly (Eds.), Androgen Excess Disorders in Women: Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Other Disorders, Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, 2007: pp. 63–72.

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 Mechanism and Machine Theory.

Blog post

[1]

B. Taub, Experts Call On WHO To Reconsider Global Cannabis Ban, IFLScience (2016). https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/experts-call-who-reconsider-global-cannabis-ban/ (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: SSA’s February 1989 Report on Computer Modernization Is Incomplete, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1989.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

C.K. Sokolov, Teacher Engagement In Grades 4-8, Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine 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]

B. Kenigsberg, Moscow Never Sleeps, New York Times (2017) C9.

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	Mechanism and Machine Theory
Abbreviation	Mech. Mach. Theory
ISSN (print)	0094-114X
Scope	Bioengineering Computer Science Applications Mechanical Engineering Mechanics of Materials