How to format your references using the NRL Advances citation style

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

Nutt D (2014) Help luck along to find psychiatric medicines. Nature 515:165

A journal article with 2 authors

Weis VM, Allemand D (2009) Physiology. What determines coral health? Science 324:1153–1155

A journal article with 3 authors

Depine GV, Andronicos CL, Phipps-Morgan J (2008) Near-isothermal conditions in the middle and lower crust induced by melt migration. Nature 452:80–83

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Takahashi H, Kato M, Matsuura M, et al (2009) When your gain is my pain and your pain is my gain: neural correlates of envy and schadenfreude. Science 323:937–939

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sarisky D (2012) Scriptural Interpretation. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Zylka MP, Fuehres H, Fronzetti Colladon A, Gloor PA (2016) Designing Networks for Innovation and Improvisation: Proceedings of the 6th International COINs Conference. Springer International Publishing, Cham

A chapter in an edited book

Kangas A (2006) Mensurational Aspects. In: Kangas A, Maltamo M (eds) Forest Inventory: Methodology and Applications. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 53–63

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 NRL Advances.

Blog post

Andrew E (2015) Should You Rely On First Instincts When Answering A Multiple Choice Exam? In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/should-you-rely-first-instincts-when-answering-multiple-choice-exam/. 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 (1985) Implementation of P.L. 94-142 as It Relates to Handicapped Delinquents in the District of Columbia. 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

Espinoza M (2010) A Latina’s educational attainment and her observations of foster youth’s educational struggles: A narrative. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

SOPHIA PECK ROSS.RICHARD F. BLOUGH.HUGH ARCHBALD.ALEXANDER ROYDEN.RAPHAEL.SPENCER B. WITTY.CARL R. KLEIN, Tilis LB, JOSEPH A. CELESTE.JONATHAN ESTOFF.GEORGES SCHREIBER.THOMAS J. BARNUM.ALLAN C. INMAN (1950) Letters; NOT CITY GUIDES TO THE PEOPLE GOP TROUBLE GRACE AND CHARM HOWL WITTY, TOO A BAS “ERPIVORI” OLD HAT FOREIGN SERVICE HERITAGE. New York Times The New York Times Magazine151

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	NRL Advances
ISSN (online)	2197-375X
Scope