How to format your references using the Microchimica Acta citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Microchimica Acta. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Pither J (2007) Comment on “Dispersal limitations matter for microbial morphospecies.” Science 316:1124; author reply 1124

A journal article with 2 authors

Shortle D, Ackerman MS (2001) Persistence of native-like topology in a denatured protein in 8 M urea. Science 293:487–489

A journal article with 3 authors

Long SB, Campbell EB, Mackinnon R (2005) Voltage sensor of Kv1.2: structural basis of electromechanical coupling. Science 309:903–908

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Monk KR, Naylor SG, Glenn TD, et al (2009) A G protein-coupled receptor is essential for Schwann cells to initiate myelination. Science 325:1402–1405

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Avlonas N, Nassos GP (2013) Practical Sustainability Strategies. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Roth K, Gur-Ze’ev I (2007) Education in the Era of Globalization. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

A chapter in an edited book

Chang S (2013) Laziness by Need. In: Felleisen M, Gardner P (eds) Programming Languages and Systems: 22nd European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2013, Held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2013, Rome, Italy, March 16-24, 2013. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 81–100

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 Microchimica Acta.

Blog post

Andrews R (2017) Does Torture Actually Work? In: IFLScience. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1989) Implementation Status of the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Lincoln JJ (2010) Creating a lesson that addresses gender differences in physics testing a specific instructional technique in college level physics education. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

B Y Robert Kelly;, who teaches at Bard College, is a Poet Whose, et al (1986) A LOVE AFFAIR WITH SILENCE. New York Times 721

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	Microchimica Acta
Abbreviation	Mikrochim. Acta
ISSN (print)	0026-3672
ISSN (online)	1436-5073
Scope	Analytical Chemistry