How to format your references using the Nature Photonics citation style

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

Dunbar, R. Psychology. Evolution of the social brain. Science 302, 1160–1161 (2003).

A journal article with 2 authors

Bengtson, M. H. & Joazeiro, C. A. P. Role of a ribosome-associated E3 ubiquitin ligase in protein quality control. Nature 467, 470–473 (2010).

A journal article with 3 authors

Bai, T., Pollard, D. D. & Gao, H. Explanation for fracture spacing in layered materials. Nature 403, 753–756 (2000).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Krimigis, S. M., Mitchell, D. G., Roelof, E. C., Hsieh, K. C. & McComas, D. J. Imaging the interaction of the heliosphere with the interstellar medium from Saturn with Cassini. Science 326, 971–973 (2009).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Meyr, H., Moeneclaey, M. & Fechtel, S. A. Digital Communication Receivers: Synchronization, Channel Estimation, and Signal Processing. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2001).

An edited book

Kuhn, D. Generalized Bounds for Convex Multistage Stochastic Programs. vol. 548 (Springer, 2005).

A chapter in an edited book

Silva, S. M. da. Disinheriting the Heritage and the Case of Pauliteiras. in Mediterranean Art and Education: Navigating Local, Regional and Global Imaginaries Through the Lens of the Arts And Learning (eds. Baldacchino, J. & Vella, R.) 43–58 (SensePublishers, 2013).

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 Photonics.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Male Java Sparrows Drop The Beat. IFLScience (2015).

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. Adult Education: Measuring Program Results Has Been Challenging. (1995).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Yamada, M. The role of the TRANSPORT INHIBITOR RESPONSE2 (TIR2) gene in auxin synthesis in Arabidopsis. (Indiana University, 2008).

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

Koblin, J. At the Emmys, a Night of Politics and Trump. New York Times C1 (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 Photonics
Abbreviation	Nat. Photonics
ISSN (print)	1749-4885
ISSN (online)	1749-4893
Scope	Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics