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

Derry LA (2006) Atmospheric science. Fungi, weathering, and the emergence of animals. Science 311:1386–1387

A journal article with 2 authors

Tikku AA, Direen NG (2008) Comment on “Major Australian-Antarctic plate reorganization at Hawaiian-Emperor bend time.” Science 321:490; author reply 490

A journal article with 3 authors

Seidenberg MS, MacDonald MC, Saffran JR (2002) Neuroscience. Does grammar start where statistics stop? Science 298:553–554

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Litbarg NO, Vujicic S, Setty S, et al (2013) A novel model of surgical injury in adult rat kidney: a “pouch model.” Sci Rep 3:2890

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kaul S, Ali F, Janakiram S, Wattenström B (2008) Business Models for Sustainable Telecoms Growth in Developing Economies. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Pébay A (ed) (2014) Regenerative Biology of the Eye. Springer, New York, NY

A chapter in an edited book

Lee S-H, Jung H-G (2016) Ankle and Subtalar Ligaments: Acute Injuries and Chronic Instabilities. In: Jung H-G (ed) Foot and Ankle Disorders: An Illustrated Reference. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 147–183

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

Andrew E (2016) Moving Beyond Pro/Con Debates Over Genetically Engineered Crops. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/moving-beyond-procon-debates-over-genetically-engineered-crops/. 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 (1996) Medicaid Managed Care: Serving the Disabled Challenges State Programs. 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

Ryan BA (2012) Computer-Based Versus Paper-Pencil Modes of Administration United States Government End of Course Exams: Student Cumulative Grade Point Averages as Predictors of Success. Doctoral dissertation, Lindenwood 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

Rothenberg B (2017) Bryans Defeated for Title in ‘Maybe the Last Year.’ New York Times SP5

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Derry 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Derry 2006; Tikku and Direen 2008).

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

Two authors: (Tikku and Direen 2008)
Three or more authors: (Litbarg et al. 2013)

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