How to format your references using the Nature Physics citation style

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

Maynard, A. D. Don’t define nanomaterials. Nature 475, 31 (2011).

A journal article with 2 authors

Lu, Q. & Lemke, G. Homeostatic regulation of the immune system by receptor tyrosine kinases of the Tyro 3 family. Science 293, 306–311 (2001).

A journal article with 3 authors

Hopkins, A. L., Witty, M. J. & Nwaka, S. Mission possible. Nature 449, 166–169 (2007).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Baldwin, S. L. et al. Pliocene eclogite exhumation at plate tectonic rates in eastern Papua New Guinea. Nature 431, 263–267 (2004).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

de Klerk, A. Fischer-Tropsch Refining. (Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2011).

An edited book

Health Practice Relationships. (SensePublishers, Rotterdam, 2014).

A chapter in an edited book

Droste-Franke, B. et al. Specific Economic Problems and Uncertainties in the Context of Energy Systems. in Improving Energy Decisions: Towards Better Scientific Policy Advice for a Safe and Secure Future Energy System (eds. Carrier, M., Kaiser, M., Schreurs, M., Weber, C. & Ziesemer, T.) 141–174 (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2015).

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 Physics.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Researchers discover how mosquitos locate hosts’ skin for feeding. IFLScience (2013).

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. Special Education: Congressional Action Needed to Improve Chapter 1 Handicapped Program. (1989).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Whittle, C. M. The genomic distribution and function of NFI and histone variant H2A.Z during Caenorhabditis elegans development. (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 2009).

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, D. A. How to Get the Best Rate (and Avoid Fees). New York Times TR6 (2006).

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 Physics
Abbreviation	Nat. Phys.
ISSN (print)	1745-2473
ISSN (online)	1745-2481
Scope	General Physics and Astronomy