How to format your references using the Mechatronics citation style

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

Weijer CJ. Visualizing signals moving in cells. Science 2003;300:96–100.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Gal-Yam A, Leonard DC. A massive hypergiant star as the progenitor of the supernova SN 2005gl. Nature 2009;458:865–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Tobie G, Lunine JI, Sotin C. Episodic outgassing as the origin of atmospheric methane on Titan. Nature 2006;440:61–4.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Sun C, Ma M, Yang J, Zhang Y, Chen P, Huang W, et al. Phase-controlled synthesis of α-NiS nanoparticles confined in carbon nanorods for high performance supercapacitors. Sci Rep 2014;4:7054.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Adámek J. Foundations of Coding. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 1991.

An edited book

[1]

Verdone R, editor. Wireless Sensor Networks: 5th European Conference, EWSN 2008, Bologna, Italy, January 30-February 1, 2008. Proceedings. vol. 4913. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Cheng J, Berg E. Pediatric Otology and Cochlear Implants. In: Lin F, Patel Z, editors. ENT Board Prep: High Yield Review for the Otolaryngology In-service and Board Exams, New York, NY: Springer; 2014, p. 25–8.

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 Mechatronics.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. If We Burned All Fossil Fuels, Would Any Of Antarctica’s Ice Survive? IFLScience 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/if-we-burned-all-fossil-fuels-would-any-antarctica-s-ice-survive/ (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. Electronic Government: Federal Agencies Have Made Progress Implementing the E-Government Act of 2002. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2004.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Moton JM. Investigation of low temperature solid oxide fuel cells for air-independent UUV applications. Doctoral dissertation. University of Maryland, College Park, 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

[1]

Sisario B. Who Needs Streaming? Aldean Album Is No. 1. New York Times 2016:C3.

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	Mechatronics
Abbreviation	Mechatronics (Oxf.)
ISSN (print)	0957-4158
Scope	Computer Science Applications Electrical and Electronic Engineering Mechanical Engineering