How to format your references using the Nature Reviews Drug Discovery citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Walt, D. R. Chemistry. Miniature analytical methods for medical diagnostics. Science 308, 217–219 (2005).

A journal article with 2 authors

Sun, Z.-W. & Allis, C. D. Ubiquitination of histone H2B regulates H3 methylation and gene silencing in yeast. Nature 418, 104–108 (2002).

A journal article with 3 authors

Prescher, J. A., Dube, D. H. & Bertozzi, C. R. Chemical remodelling of cell surfaces in living animals. Nature 430, 873–877 (2004).

A journal article with 6 or more authors

Rothschild, B. M., Mitchell, E. D., Moore, M. J. & Early, G. A. What Causes Lesions in Sperm Whale Bones? Science 308, 631c–632c (2005).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Pease, G. Optimize Your Greatest Asset-Your People. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 2015).

An edited book

Travelling Concepts: Negotiating Diversity in Canada and Europe. (VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden, 2010).

A chapter in an edited book

Alekseev, V. R. Reactivation of Diapausing Crustaceans. in Diapause in Aquatic Invertebrates Theory and Human Use (eds. Alekseev, V. R., Stasio, B. T. de & Gilbert, J. J.) 65–82 (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2007).

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 Reviews Drug Discovery.

Blog post

Andrews, R. Why Do Women Have Orgasms? 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. Aircraft Maintenance: Potential Shortage in National Aircraft Repair Capacity. (1990).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Lavoie, D. Ecotone. (California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, 2010).

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

Wagner, J. Role Players Define the Dodgers, and Hernandez Has a Leading Part. New York Times D3 (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 Reviews Drug Discovery
Abbreviation	Nat. Rev. Drug Discov.
ISSN (print)	1474-1776
ISSN (online)	1474-1784
Scope	General Medicine Drug Discovery Pharmacology