How to format your references using the Operations Research citation style

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

Zoller P (2000) Tricks with a single photon. Nature 404(6776):340–341.

A journal article with 2 authors

Kanematsu Y, Takahashi K (2007) Employing Japan’s postdocs. Nature 447(7147):1028.

A journal article with 3 authors

Larson KM, Bodin P, Gomberg J (2003) Using 1-Hz GPS data to measure deformations caused by the Denali fault earthquake. Science 300(5624):1421–1424.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Yanagida T, Nagashima K, Oka K, Kanai M, Klamchuen A, Park BH, Kawai T (2013) Scaling effect on unipolar and bipolar resistive switching of metal oxides. Sci. Rep. 3:1657.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hunt-Ahmed K (2013) Contemporary Islamic Finance (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ).

An edited book

Donaldson D, Raahauge BE eds. (2016) Essential Readings in Light Metals: Volume 1 Alumina and Bauxite (Springer International Publishing, Cham).

A chapter in an edited book

Buehl MM (2008) Assessing the Multidimensionality of Students’ Epistemic Beliefs Across Diverse Cultures. Khine MS, ed. Knowing, Knowledge and Beliefs: Epistemological Studies across Diverse Cultures. (Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht), 65–112.

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 Operations Research.

Blog post

Andrew E (2015) Half-a-Billion-Year-Old Spike-Covered Creature Discovered. IFLScience. Retrieved (October 30, 2018), https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/half-billion-year-old-spike-covered-creature-discovered/.

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 (2003) Aviation Security: Efforts to Measure Effectiveness and Strengthen Security Programs (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

Datta A (2017) Speech Synthesis Using Unsupervised Learning. Doctoral dissertation. (California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA).

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

Blinder A (2015) A Cheeseburger, a Suburban Traffic Stop and a Ticket for Eating While Driving. New York Times (January 21).

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Zoller 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Kanematsu and Takahashi 2007, Zoller 2000).

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

Two authors: (Kanematsu and Takahashi 2007)
Three or more authors: (Yanagida et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	Operations Research
Abbreviation	Oper. Res.
ISSN (print)	0030-364X
ISSN (online)	1526-5463
Scope	Computer Science Applications Management Science and Operations Research