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

Sarewitz, D. CRISPR: Science can’t solve it. Nature 522, 413–414 (2015).

A journal article with 2 authors

Treseder, K. K. & Holden, S. R. Ecology. Fungal carbon sequestration. Science 339, 1528–1529 (2013).

A journal article with 3 authors

Riddihough, G., Purnell, B. A. & Travis, J. Freedom of expression. Introduction to special issue. Science 319, 1781 (2008).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Elde, N. C., Child, S. J., Geballe, A. P. & Malik, H. S. Protein kinase R reveals an evolutionary model for defeating viral mimicry. Nature 457, 485–489 (2009).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wartenberg, T. E. A Sneetch Is a Sneetch and Other Philosophical Discoveries. (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 2013).

An edited book

Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker: A Pioneer on Environmental, Climate and Energy Policies. vol. 28 (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2014).

A chapter in an edited book

Monroy-Ata, A., Peña-Becerril, J. C. & García-Díaz, M. Mycorrhizal Symbiosis Organization of Dominant Tree Prosopis laevigata (Mesquite) in a Xeric Shrub of Central Mexico. in Recent Advances on Mycorrhizal Fungi (ed. Pagano, M. C.) 35–45 (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016).

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

Fang, J. Island Foxes May Be The Least Genetically Variable Wild Animals. IFLScience (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. Weather Forecasting: Recommendations to Address New Weather Processing System Development Risks. (1996).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Wright, M. W. The Louisiana Teacher Assault Pay Statute: An Analysis of Court Decisions Interpreting the Statute and a Comparative Study of Teacher Assault Pay Statutes in Other States. (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

Kelly, C. Facebook Status? In Town and Wondering What to Do. New York Times F5 (2009).

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