How to format your references using the Naturwissenschaften citation style

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

Walker NJ (2002) Tech.Sight. A technique whose time has come. Science 296:557–559

A journal article with 2 authors

Fehr E, Fischbacher U (2003) The nature of human altruism. Nature 425:785–791

A journal article with 3 authors

Davis MC, Dahn RD, Shubin NH (2007) An autopodial-like pattern of Hox expression in the fins of a basal actinopterygian fish. Nature 447:473–476

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Lamb JB, Willis BL, Fiorenza EA, et al (2018) Plastic waste associated with disease on coral reefs. Science 359:460–462

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Deutscher Beton- und Bautechnik-Ver (2015) Beispiele zur Bemessung nach Eurocode 2. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany

An edited book

Zoulias EI (2008) Hydrogen-based Autonomous Power Systems: Techno-economic Analysis of the Integration of Hydrogen in Autonomous Power Systems. Springer, London

A chapter in an edited book

Farnell J, Crookes PI (2016) Investment. In: Irwin Crookes P (ed) The Politics of EU-China Economic Relations: An Uneasy Partnership. Palgrave Macmillan UK, London, pp 95–120

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 Naturwissenschaften.

Blog post

Andrews R (2017) Did The Tunguska Event Of 1908 Leave A Hidden Impact Crater? In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/tunguska-event-1908-leave-hidden-impact-crater/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (1998) Education and Employment Issue Area Plan: Fiscal Years 1998-2000. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Osifalujo A (2015) Code-switching in Working African Americans: Internalized Racism, Minority Status, and Organizational Commitment. Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University

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

Krieger S (2016) Thumbing, Old and New. New York Times A17

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Walker 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Walker 2002; Fehr and Fischbacher 2003).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Fehr and Fischbacher 2003)
Three or more authors: (Lamb et al. 2018)

About the journal

Full journal title	Naturwissenschaften
Abbreviation	Sci. Nat.
ISSN (print)	0028-1042
ISSN (online)	1432-1904
Scope	Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics General Medicine