How to format your references using the Nuclear Physics, Section A citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Nuclear Physics, Section A. 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	Download the output style file
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]

S. de Chadarevian, Perceptions in science. The making of an icon, Science. 300 (2003) 255–257.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

E.Y. Tsymbal, H. Kohlstedt, Applied physics. Tunneling across a ferroelectric, Science. 313 (2006) 181–183.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

K.J. Mitchell, A. Cooper, M.J. Phillips, Comment on “Whole-genome analyses resolve early branches in the tree of life of modern birds,” Science. 349 (2015) 1460.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

L. Juan, H.-L. Tong, P. Zhang, G. Guo, Z. Wang, X. Wen, Z. Dong, Y.-P. Tian, Identification and characterization of novel serum microRNA candidates from deep sequencing in cervical cancer patients, Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 6277.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

M. Furmston, Powell-Smith & Furmston’s Building Contract Casebook, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 2008.

An edited book

[1]

C.Y.-Y. Lin, National Intellectual Capital and the Financial Crisis in Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, Springer, New York, NY, 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

V.N. Popov, Feedback Loop of Non-coupled Respiration and Reactive Oxygen Species Production in Plant Mitochondria, in: K.J. Gupta, A.U. Igamberdiev (Eds.), Reactive Oxygen and Nitrogen Species Signaling and Communication in Plants, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2015: pp. 79–88.

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 Nuclear Physics, Section A.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Study Says British Drinking Guidelines Are “Unrealistic” And “Irrelevant,” IFLScience. (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/study-says-british-drinking-guidelines-are-unrealistic-and-irrelevant/ (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, The Management and Operation of FCC’s Public Reference Rooms, 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]

M.C. Poland, New cluster-based routing and multi-channel MAC protocols for vehicular ad hoc networks, Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, 2010.

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]

M.W. Walsh, California Debt Higher Than Earlier Estimates, a Task Force Reports, New York Times. (2012) A18.

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	Nuclear Physics, Section A
Abbreviation	Nucl. Phys. A
ISSN (print)	0375-9474
Scope	Nuclear and High Energy Physics