How to format your references using the Nanoscale Research Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Nanoscale Research Letters. 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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

Collins T (2001) Essays on science and society. Toward sustainable chemistry. Science 291:48–49

A journal article with 2 authors

Smith MTJ, Rubinstein JL (2014) Structural biology. Beyond blob-ology. Science 345:617–619

A journal article with 3 authors

Lutz W, Sanderson W, Scherbov S (2008) The coming acceleration of global population ageing. Nature 451:716–719

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Wang H-J, Xi X-K, Kleinhammes A, Wu Y (2008) Temperature-induced hydrophobic-hydrophilic transition observed by water adsorption. Science 322:80–83

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

McLeish B (2010) Successful Marketing Strategies for Nonprofit Organizations. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Kincheloe JL (2008) Knowledge and Critical Pedagogy: An Introduction. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

A chapter in an edited book

Greiner A, Fincke B (2009) The Role of Real Wage Rigidity and Unemployment. In: Fincke B (ed) Public Debt and Economic Growth. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 111–127

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 Nanoscale Research Letters.

Blog post

Fang J (2015) Moth Night Vision is Specialized for Tracking Flowers Swaying in the Breeze. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/moth-night-vision-specialized-tracking-flowers-swaying-breeze/. 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 (2013) Indian Affairs: Management Challenges Continue to Hinder Efforts to Improve Indian Education. 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

Siani JM (2009) Costs and benefits of cooperative infant care in wild golden lion tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia). Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park

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

Kanter J (2017) E.U. Lawmakers Approve Canada Trade Deal, in Message to Trump. New York Times B2

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	Nanoscale Research Letters
Abbreviation	Nanoscale Res. Lett.
ISSN (print)	1931-7573
ISSN (online)	1556-276X
Scope	General Materials Science Condensed Matter Physics