How to format your references using the Nature Climate Change citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1.
Frei, H. Chemistry. Selective hydrocarbon oxidation in zeolites. Science 313, 309–310 (2006).
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Kasthuri, N. & Lichtman, J. W. The role of neuronal identity in synaptic competition. Nature 424, 426–430 (2003).
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Frank, M. J., Seeberger, L. C. & O’reilly, R. C. By carrot or by stick: cognitive reinforcement learning in parkinsonism. Science 306, 1940–1943 (2004).
A journal article with 6 or more authors
1.
Kinoshita, K., Arnal, I., Desai, A., Drechsel, D. N. & Hyman, A. A. Reconstitution of physiological microtubule dynamics using purified components. Science 294, 1340–1343 (2001).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Carvalho, M. C. Practical Laboratory Automation. (Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2016).
An edited book
1.
Starbursts: From 30 Doradus to Lyman Break Galaxies. vol. 329 (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2005).
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Rajamani, S. K. Verification, Testing and Statistics. in FM 2009: Formal Methods: Second World Congress, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, November 2-6, 2009. Proceedings (eds. Cavalcanti, A. & Dams, D. R.) 33–40 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009).

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 Climate Change.

Blog post
1.
Andrew, E. Coldest Place In The Universe Looks Like A Ghost. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/space/young-planetary-nebula-looks-ghost/ (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
1.
Government Accountability Office. Head Start: Additional Information on Implementation of Transportation Regulations. (2006).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Wilson, W. C. Life satisfaction of Air Force civilian male spouses. (Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, 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
1.
Hanc, J. Longer and Better. New York Times F4 (2017).

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 titleNature Climate Change
AbbreviationNat. Clim. Chang.
ISSN (print)1758-678X
ISSN (online)1758-6798
ScopeEnvironmental Science (miscellaneous)
Social Sciences (miscellaneous)

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