How to format your references using the NFS Journal citation style

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

[1]

F. Wilczek, Physics: The enigmatic electron, Nature. 498 (2013) 31–32.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

E.J. van Opstal, S.R. Bordenstein, MICROBIOME. Rethinking heritability of the microbiome, Science. 349 (2015) 1172–1173.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

A.C. Mason, M.L. Oshinsky, R.R. Hoy, Hyperacute directional hearing in a microscale auditory system, Nature. 410 (2001) 686–690.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

J. Yu, Z. Xie, H. Kang, Z. Li, C. Sun, L. Bian, P. Zhang, High variability of atmospheric mercury in the summertime boundary layer through the central Arctic Ocean, Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 6091.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

D.M.F. Prazeres, Plasmid Biopharmaceuticals, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2011.

An edited book

[1]

J.P. Davim, ed., Nontraditional Machining Processes: Research Advances, Springer, London, 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

I.D. Landau, R. Lozano, M. M’Saad, A. Karimi, Recursive Plant Model Identification in Open Loop, in: R. Lozano, M. M’Saad, A. Karimi (Eds.), Adaptive Control: Algorithms, Analysis and Applications, Springer, London, 2011: pp. 153–191.

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 NFS Journal.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Evolution Took Many Paths To Building ‘Pygmy’ Bodies, IFLScience. (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/evolution-took-many-paths-building-pygmy-bodies/ (accessed October 30, 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Civilian Agencies’ Management and Use of Aircraft, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

R.L. Rahschulte, An Examination of the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Detect, Practice, and Repair versus Traditional Cover, Copy, and Compare Procedures: A Component Analysis, Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2014.

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

[1]

G. Vecsey, Finish Is a Beacon Of an Alluring World Cup, New York Times. (2010) D1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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	NFS Journal
ISSN (print)	2352-3646
Scope

Research and Writing Guides