How to format your references using the Natural Computing citation style

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

Minsky M (2000) Time for an aspirin. Nature 403:592

A journal article with 2 authors

Bongaarts J, Sinding S (2011) Population policy in transition in the developing world. Science 333:574–576

A journal article with 3 authors

Srinivasan V, Pierik AJ, Lill R (2014) Crystal structures of nucleotide-free and glutathione-bound mitochondrial ABC transporter Atm1. Science 343:1137–1140

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Li M, Brooks CL, Wu-Baer F, et al (2003) Mono- versus polyubiquitination: differential control of p53 fate by Mdm2. Science 302:1972–1975

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kizer G (2013) Digital Microwave Communication. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Aiguier M, Bretaudeau F, Krob D (eds) (2010) Complex Systems Design & Management: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Complex System Design & Management CSDM 2010. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Norton BG (2013) Facts, Values, and Analogies: A Darwinian Approach to Environmental Choice. In: Bergandi D (ed) The Structural Links between Ecology, Evolution and Ethics: The Virtuous Epistemic Circle. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 63–82

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 Natural Computing.

Blog post

Andrews R (2016) Was Japan’s 6.9M Earthquake Linked To The 2011 Megathrust Disaster? In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/japan-earthquake-linked-2011-megathrust-disaster/. 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 (1980) Increasing Use of Data Telecommunications Calls for Stronger Protection and Improved Economies. 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

Boerner CL (2013) The organizational culture and leadership values that impact Native American water utility organizations. Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University

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

Kleiman K (2011) Change Sweeps Through Black Theater in Chicago. New York Times A19B

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Minsky 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Minsky 2000; Bongaarts and Sinding 2011).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Bongaarts and Sinding 2011)
Three or more authors: (Li et al. 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Natural Computing
Abbreviation	Nat. Comput.
ISSN (print)	1567-7818
ISSN (online)	1572-9796
Scope	Computer Science Applications

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