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

Korgel BA (2005) Materials science. Nanosprings take shape. Science 309:1683–1684

A journal article with 2 authors

Hogan DA, Kolter R (2002) Pseudomonas-Candida interactions: an ecological role for virulence factors. Science 296:2229–2232

A journal article with 3 authors

Budday S, Raybaud C, Kuhl E (2014) A mechanical model predicts morphological abnormalities in the developing human brain. Sci Rep 4:5644

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Takaku Y, Hwang JS, Wolf A, et al (2014) Innexin gap junctions in nerve cells coordinate spontaneous contractile behavior in Hydra polyps. Sci Rep 4:3573

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cheremisinoff NP (2013) Industrial Gas Flaring Practices. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Wescoat JL, Johnston DM (2008) Political Economies of Landscape Change: Places of Integrative Power. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

A chapter in an edited book

McClean PE, Lavin M, Gepts P, Jackson SA (2008) Phaseolus vulgaris: A Diploid Model for Soybean. In: Stacey G (ed) Genetics and Genomics of Soybean. Springer, New York, NY, pp 55–76

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 D (2016) What Is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome And What Happens If I Get It? In: IFLScience. 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 (1989) Railroad Safety: FRA Needs to Correct Deficiencies in Reporting Injuries and Accidents. 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

Hall S (2011) The use of art therapy to address psychosocial stress among men living with HIV: A grant proposal project. 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

Eligon J, Smith M (2017) Woman Shot by Minneapolis Officer ‘Didn’t Have to Die,’ Police Chief Says. New York Times A13

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