How to format your references using the Nature Immunology citation style

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

Miller, J. S. Obituary: Donald E. Osterbrock (1924-2007). Nature 446, 870 (2007).

A journal article with 2 authors

Milligan, A. J. & Morel, F. M. M. A proton buffering role for silica in diatoms. Science 297, 1848–1850 (2002).

A journal article with 3 authors

Vlemmings, W. H. T., Diamond, P. J. & Imai, H. A magnetically collimated jet from an evolved star. Nature 440, 58–60 (2006).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Fraser, A. G. et al. Functional genomic analysis of C. elegans chromosome I by systematic RNA interference. Nature 408, 325–330 (2000).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Stratton, J. A. Electromagnetic Theory. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2015).

An edited book

Emerging Applications of Algebraic Geometry. vol. 149 (Springer, 2009).

A chapter in an edited book

Tomppo, E. et al. Summary of Accomplishments. in National Forest Inventories: Pathways for Common Reporting (eds. Tomppo, E., Gschwantner, T., Lawrence, M. & McRoberts, R. E.) 45–54 (Springer Netherlands, 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 Immunology.

Blog post

Hale, T. Giant Snowballs Show Up Along A Siberian Beach. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/environment/giant-snowballs-show-up-along-a-siberian-beach/ (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. Environmental Protection Agency: Control of Air Pollution From New Motor Vehicles--Tier 2 Motor Vehicle Emissions Standards and Gasoline Sulfur Control Requirements. (2000).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Edwards, J. W. The Relation Between Expressed Emotion and Adolescent Psychopathology. (Ohio State University, 2006).

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

Silver-Greenberg, J. & Corkery, M. Rule Could Let Consumers Sue Financial Firms. New York Times A1 (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 title	Nature Immunology
Abbreviation	Nat. Immunol.
ISSN (print)	1529-2908
ISSN (online)	1529-2916
Scope	Immunology