How to format your references using the Nature citation style

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

Tranter, M. Biogeochemistry: Microbes eat rock under ice. Nature 512, 256–257 (2014).

A journal article with 2 authors

Suit, H. D. & Willers, H. Comment on ‘Tumor response to radiotherapy regulated by endothelial cell apoptosis’ (I). Science 302, 1894; author reply 1894 (2003).

A journal article with 3 authors

Gorb, E. V., Baum, M. J. & Gorb, S. N. Development and regeneration ability of the wax coverage in Nepenthes alata pitchers: a cryo-SEM approach. Sci. Rep. 3, 3078 (2013).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Huxley, A. et al. Realignment of the flux-line lattice by a change in the symmetry of superconductivity in UPt3. Nature 406, 160–164 (2000).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cavalla, D. Off-Label Prescribing - Justifying Unapproved Medicine. (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2015).

An edited book

Real Photo Postcards: Unbelievable Images from the Collection of Harvey Tulcensky. (Princeton Archit. Press, New York, NY, 2005).

A chapter in an edited book

Kalogeras, N., Pennings, J. M. E., Dijk, G. van & van der Lans, I. A. The Structure of Marketing Cooperatives. in Vertical Markets and Cooperative Hierarchies: The Role of Cooperatives in the Agri-Food Industry (ed. Nilsson, J.) 73–92 (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2007).

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 Nature.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J. The US Air Force’s Secret Space Plane Just Returned To Earth. 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

Government Accountability Office. School Finance: State and Federal Efforts to Target Poor Students. (1998).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Yates, S. L. Asian Indian women with gestational diabetes improving care for mothers and babies “Dals, Dosas and me”. (California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 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

Mueller, B. & Rosenberg, E. Worker Trying to Prevent Vehicle Break-Ins Is Fatally Shot; Police Seek 3 Men. New York Times A23 (2015).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Nature
Abbreviation	Nature
ISSN (print)	0028-0836
ISSN (online)	1476-4687
Scope	Multidisciplinary