How to format your references using the NursingPlus Open citation style

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

Jablonski, D. (2004). Extinction: past and present. Nature, 427(6975), 589.

A journal article with 2 authors

Pan, H., & Chen, B. (2014). Ultra-flexibility and unusual electronic, magnetic and chemical properties of waved graphenes and nanoribbons. Scientific Reports, 4, 4198.

A journal article with 3 authors

Titus, T. N., Kieffer, H. H., & Christensen, P. R. (2003). Exposed water ice discovered near the south pole of Mars. Science (New York, N.Y.), 299(5609), 1048–1051.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Whitlock, J. R., Heynen, A. J., Shuler, M. G., & Bear, M. F. (2006). Learning induces long-term potentiation in the hippocampus. Science (New York, N.Y.), 313(5790), 1093–1097.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Chin, E., Nel, D., & Ólafsson, S. (2014). Problems and Solutions in Mathematical Finance. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Dincer, I. (2016). Clean Rail Transportation Options (J. Hogerwaard & C. Zamfirescu, Eds.; 1st ed. 2016). Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Greenbaum, B., Trifonov, V., Khiabanian, H., Levine, A., & Rabadan, R. (2011). The Emergence of 2009 H1N1 Pandemic Influenza. In R. Rappuoli & G. Del Giudice (Eds.), Influenza Vaccines for the Future (pp. 95–111). Springer.

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 NursingPlus Open.

Blog post

Carpineti, A. (2017, February 13). Scientists Have Modeled What Gravitiational Waves From The Big Bang Might Look Like. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/scientists-have-modeled-what-gravitiational-waves-from-the-big-bang-might-look-like/

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. (2009). National Airspace System: FAA Reauthorization Issues are Critical to System Transformation and Operations (GAO-09-377T). U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

McLean, M. R. (2010). Analyzing the relationship of geographic mobility and institutional prestige to career advancement of women in academic medicine pursuing midcareer-, senior-, or executive-level administrative positions: Implications for career advancement strategies [Doctoral dissertation]. George Washington University.

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

Greenhouse, L. (2008, June 17). Court to Hear Challenge From Muslims Held After 9/11. New York Times, A16.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Jablonski, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Jablonski, 2004; Pan & Chen, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Pan & Chen, 2014)
Three authors: (Titus et al., 2003)
6 or more authors: (Whitlock et al., 2006)

About the journal

Full journal title	NursingPlus Open
Abbreviation	NursingPlus Open
ISSN (print)	2352-9008
Scope