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

Herrmann, M. Plasma physics: A promising advance in nuclear fusion. Nature 506, 302–303 (2014).

A journal article with 2 authors

Moar, W. J. & Anilkumar, K. J. Plant science. The power of the pyramid. Science 318, 1561–1562 (2007).

A journal article with 3 authors

Bandyopadhyay, P. R., Leinhos, H. A. & Hellum, A. M. Handedness helps homing in swimming and flying animals. Sci. Rep. 3, 1128 (2013).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Celikel, R. et al. Modulation of alpha-thrombin function by distinct interactions with platelet glycoprotein Ibalpha. Science 301, 218–221 (2003).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Benitez, M., Davidson, J. & Flaxman, L. Small Schools, Big Ideas. (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, USA, 2009).

An edited book

Neutron Applications in Materials for Energy. (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2015).

A chapter in an edited book

Sheehan, W. & Conselice, C. J. Of Leviathans, Spirals, and Fire-Mists. in Galactic Encounters: Our Majestic and Evolving Star-System, From the Big Bang to Time’s End (ed. Conselice, C. J.) 79–98 (Springer, New York, NY, 2015).

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

Andrew, E. Hungry Snake Picked The Wrong Dinner. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/hungry-snake-picked-wrong-dinner/ (2014).

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. Social Security: Quality of Services Generally Rated High by Clients Sampled. (1986).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Glasgow, H. L. Design and Selection of Probes for In Vivo Molecular Targeting and Imaging. (University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 2015).

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

Saslow, L. Putting the Pan in Pan-American. New York Times 14LI8 (2006).

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