How to format your references using the New Astronomy citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Reif, J.H., 2002. Computing. Successes and challenges. Science 296, 478–479.
A journal article with 2 authors
Bell, G.I., Polonsky, K.S., 2001. Diabetes mellitus and genetically programmed defects in beta-cell function. Nature 414, 788–791.
A journal article with 3 authors
Coleman, S.W., Patricelli, G.L., Borgia, G., 2004. Variable female preferences drive complex male displays. Nature 428, 742–745.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
Bico, J., Roman, B., Moulin, L., Boudaoud, A., 2004. Adhesion: elastocapillary coalescence in wet hair. Nature 432, 690.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Krasner, D., 2011. A History of Modern Drama. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.
An edited book
Landman, N.H., Davis, R.A., Mapes, R.H. (Eds.), 2007. Cephalopods Present and Past: New Insights and Fresh Perspectives. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.
A chapter in an edited book
Brunner, R.D., Lynch, A.H., 2010. Opening the Regime, in: Lynch, A.H. (Ed.), Adaptive Governance and Climate Change. American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA, pp. 187–260.

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 New Astronomy.

Blog post
Andrew, E., 2014. Why Do Humans Grow So Slowly? [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/brain/why-do-humans-grow-so-slowly/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 1982. The Case for Programwide Statistical Reviews of Fraud and Abuse (No. 118596). 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
Kern, M.W., 2012. Regional phylogenetic analysis of the myology of primates and correlates in the human skeleton (Doctoral dissertation). George Washington University, Washington, DC.

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
Shear, M.D., 2017. President Issues Terms of a Deal Over ‘Dreamers.’ New York Times A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Reif, 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Bell and Polonsky, 2001; Reif, 2002).

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

  • Two authors: (Bell and Polonsky, 2001)
  • Three or more authors: (Bico et al., 2004)

About the journal

Full journal titleNew Astronomy
ISSN (print)1384-1076
ScopeSpace and Planetary Science
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Instrumentation

Other styles