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]

H.J. Ploehn, Materials science: Composite for energy storage takes the heat, Nature. 523 (2015) 536–537.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

J. Panian, D. Wiltschko, Ramp initiation in a thrust wedge, Nature. 427 (2004) 624–627.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

A. Hodge, C.D. Campbell, A.H. Fitter, An arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus accelerates decomposition and acquires nitrogen directly from organic material, Nature. 413 (2001) 297–299.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Y. Wang, E.L. Botvinick, Y. Zhao, M.W. Berns, S. Usami, R.Y. Tsien, S. Chien, Visualizing the mechanical activation of Src, Nature. 434 (2005) 1040–1045.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

K.I. Bagrintseva, Carbonate Reservoir Rocks, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2015.

An edited book

[1]

M. Paulweber, Powertrain Instrumentation and Test Systems: Development – Hybridization – Electrification, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

S. Marsh, S. Noël, T. Storer, Y. Wang, P. Briggs, L. Robart, J. Stewart, B. Esfandiari, K. El-Khatib, M. Vefa Bicakci, M. Cuong Dao, M. Cohen, D. Da Silva, Non-standards for Trust: Foreground Trust and Second Thoughts for Mobile Security, in: C. Meadows, C. Fernandez-Gago (Eds.), Security and Trust Management: 7th International Workshop, STM 2011, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 27-28, 2011, Revised Selected Papers, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2012: pp. 28–39.

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]

A. Carpineti, Astronomers Have Learned Some Pretty Crucial Things About Very Young Stars, IFLScience. (2017).

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, Development of Nontactical Secure Voice Systems, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1978.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

C.M. Quackenbush, The Imaginal Stone: Stories of self and world, Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2010.

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]

D. Philipps, B. Hubbard, Video Shows U.S. Soldiers Who Died In Jordan, New York Times. (2017) A8.

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

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