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

Perez, F. Cell biology: Organelles under light control. Nature 518, 41–42 (2015).

A journal article with 2 authors

Silver, P. G. & Behn, M. D. Intermittent plate tectonics? Science 319, 85–88 (2008).

A journal article with 3 authors

Fearon, D. T., Manders, P. & Wagner, S. D. Arrested differentiation, the self-renewing memory lymphocyte, and vaccination. Science 293, 248–250 (2001).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Fairén, A. G., Fernández-Remolar, D., Dohm, J. M., Baker, V. R. & Amils, R. Inhibition of carbonate synthesis in acidic oceans on early Mars. Nature 431, 423–426 (2004).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Esmailzadeh, R. Broadband Wireless Communications Business. (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2006).

An edited book

Direct Methods for Limit States in Structures and Materials. (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2014).

A chapter in an edited book

Jacob, G., Debar, H. & Filiol, E. Malware Behavioral Detection by Attribute-Automata Using Abstraction from Platform and Language. in Recent Advances in Intrusion Detection: 12th International Symposium, RAID 2009, Saint-Malo, France, September 23-25, 2009. Proceedings (eds. Kirda, E., Jha, S. & Balzarotti, D.) 81–100 (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 Digest.

Blog post

Hale, T. If You Use One Of These Popular Internet Services, You Need To Change Your Password Right Now. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/technology/millions-passwords-hotmail-gmail-and-yahoo-have-been-stolen/ (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. FAA Budget: 1991 Funding Request for Computers and Communications Can Be Reduced. (1990).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Phongprasert, A. V. MSW students’ perceived knowledge and perceptions of effectiveness of the child welfare system. (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

Crow, K. Time for Recalling the Departed And Reuniting the Long-Lost Related. New York Times 146 (2001).

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