How to format your references using the Nature Digest citation style

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

Berjak, P. Global voices of science. Protector of the seeds: seminal reflections from southern Africa. Science 307, 47–49 (2005).

A journal article with 2 authors

Cassenaer, S. & Laurent, G. Conditional modulation of spike-timing-dependent plasticity for olfactory learning. Nature 482, 47–52 (2012).

A journal article with 3 authors

Shen, Y., Knoll, A. H. & Walter, M. R. Evidence for low sulphate and anoxia in a mid-Proterozoic marine basin. Nature 423, 632–635 (2003).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Su, H. et al. Requirement for caspase-8 in NF-kappaB activation by antigen receptor. Science 307, 1465–1468 (2005).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Center for Chemical Process Safety. A Practical Approach to Hazard Identification for Operations and Maintenance Workers. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2010).

An edited book

Implementation and Application of Automata: 19th International Conference, CIAA 2014, Giessen, Germany, July 30 – August 2, 2014. Proceedings. vol. 8587 (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2014).

A chapter in an edited book

Logozzo, F. & Venter, H. RATA: Rapid Atomic Type Analysis by Abstract Interpretation – Application to JavaScript Optimization. in Compiler Construction: 19th International Conference, CC 2010, Held as Part of the Joint European Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2010, Paphos, Cyprus, March 20-28, 2010. Proceedings (ed. Gupta, R.) 66–83 (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010).

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 Digest.

Blog post

Andrew, E. The San Andreas Fault Is About To Crack – Here’s What Will Happen When It Does. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/environment/san-andreas-fault-about-crack-here-s-what-will-happen-when-it-does/ (2016).

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. Year 2000 Computing Challenge: The District of Columbia Cannot Reliably Track Y2K Costs. (1999).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Domec, B. S. Development, Characterization, and Resultant Properties of a Carbon, Boron, and Chromium Ternary Diffusion System. (University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA, 2017).

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

Scott, M. & Kanter, J. E.U. Ruling Said to Aim at Tax Policy for Apple. New York Times B1 (2016).

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 Digest
ISSN (print)	1880-0556
Scope