How to format your references using the Nature Materials citation style

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

Dalton, R. Researcher uncovers truth behind wartime security slur. Nature 421, 303 (2003).

A journal article with 2 authors

Wigler, M. & Mishra, B. Genetics. Wild by nature. Science 296, 1407–1408 (2002).

A journal article with 3 authors

Huang, N., Xu, Y. & Jiang, D. High-performance heterogeneous catalysis with surface-exposed stable metal nanoparticles. Sci. Rep. 4, 7228 (2014).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Tapponnier, P. et al. Oblique stepwise rise and growth of the Tibet plateau. Science 294, 1671–1677 (2001).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Evans, R. Seven Secrets of the Savvy School Leader. (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, USA, 2010).

An edited book

Trapping and the Detection, Control, and Regulation of Tephritid Fruit Flies: Lures, Area-Wide Programs, and Trade Implications. (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2014).

A chapter in an edited book

Sørensen, J. G., Sarup, P., Kristensen, T. N. & Loeschcke, V. Temperature-Induced Hormesis in Drosophila. in Mild Stress and Healthy Aging: Applying Hormesis in Aging Research and Interventions (eds. Bourg, E. L. & Rattan, S. I. S.) 65–79 (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2008).

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 Materials.

Blog post

Davis, J. Gut Bacteria Found In African Apes Perfectly Match Our Evolutionary Relationships. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/gut-bacteria-found-in-african-apes-perfectly-match-our-evolutionary-relationships/ (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. Technology Transfer: NIH-Private Sector Partnership in the Development of Taxol. (2003).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Merkurjev, D. Understanding Enhancer Role in Transcriptional Response. (University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 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

McCALLUM, S. Memory. New York Times MM17 (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 Materials
Abbreviation	Nat. Mater.
ISSN (print)	1476-1122
ISSN (online)	1476-4660
Scope	General Chemistry Mechanical Engineering Mechanics of Materials General Materials Science Condensed Matter Physics