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

Smaglik, P. Job movements. Nature 433, 901 (2005).

A journal article with 2 authors

Kilpivaara, O. & Aaltonen, L. A. Diagnostic cancer genome sequencing and the contribution of germline variants. Science 339, 1559–1562 (2013).

A journal article with 3 authors

Andrews-Hanna, J. C., Zuber, M. T. & Banerdt, W. B. The Borealis basin and the origin of the martian crustal dichotomy. Nature 453, 1212–1215 (2008).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Osborn, K. J., Haddock, S. H. D., Pleijel, F., Madin, L. P. & Rouse, G. W. Deep-sea, swimming worms with luminescent ‘bombs’. Science 325, 964 (2009).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Zhang, W. & Wan, M. Milling Simulation. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2016).

An edited book

Current News in Cardiology: Proceedings of the Mediterranean Cardiology Meeting (Taormina, May 20–22, 2007). (Springer, Milano, 2007).

A chapter in an edited book

Isabelle, A. D. & Valle, N. Z. Engineering. in Inspiring STEM Minds: Biographies and Activities for Elementary Classrooms (ed. Valle, N. Z.) 103–122 (SensePublishers, Rotterdam, 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 Materials.

Blog post

Hamilton, K. 2016’s Arctic Report Card: Temperatures Went Crazy. IFLScience https://www.iflscience.com/environment/2016s-arctic-report-card-temperatures-went-crazy/ (2017).

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. Higher Education: Information Sharing Could Help Institutions Identify and Address Challenges Some Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Students Face. (2007).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Becker, M. Women’s Descriptions Six Months Post Notification of Positive BRCA 1/2 Genetic Mutations. (Capella University, Minneapolis, MN, 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

Cooper, M. A Beloved Russian Baritone’s Surprise Return. New York Times C4 (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