How to format your references using the OPSEARCH citation style

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

Patten, Lord: Europe pays the price for spending less. Nature. 441, 691–693 (2006)

A journal article with 2 authors

Smaglik, P., Smith, A.: Biotech jobs are still around despite the recent bumpy ride. Nature. 418, 4–5 (2002)

A journal article with 3 authors

Johnson, S.C., Rabinovitch, P.S., Kaeberlein, M.: mTOR is a key modulator of ageing and age-related disease. Nature. 493, 338–345 (2013)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Potter, B.A., Beaudoin, A.B., Haynes, C.V., Holliday, V.T., Holmes, C.E., Ives, J.W., Kelly, R., Llamas, B., Malhi, R., Miller, S., Reich, D., Reuther, J.D., Schiffels, S., Surovell, T.: Arrival routes of first Americans uncertain. Science. 359, 1224–1225 (2018)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kuo, J.B., Lin, S.-C.: Low-Voltage SOI CMOS VLSI Devices and Circuits. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, USA (2002)

An edited book

Knippers, J., Nickel, K.G., Speck, T. eds: Biomimetic Research for Architecture and Building Construction: Biological Design and Integrative Structures. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2016)

A chapter in an edited book

Oren, N.: Argument Schemes for Normative Practical Reasoning. In: Black, E., Modgil, S., and Oren, N. (eds.) Theory and Applications of Formal Argumentation: Second International Workshop, TAFA 2013, Beijing, China, August 3-5, 2013, Revised Selected papers. pp. 63–78. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2014)

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 OPSEARCH.

Blog post

Andrew, E.: New Type Of Computer Capable Of Calculating 640TBs Of Data In One Billionth Of A Second, Could Revolutionize Computing, https://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-type-computer-capable-calculating-640tbs-data-one-billionth-second-could/

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: School Finance: Three States’ Experiences With Equity in School Funding. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1995)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Carpenter, D.M.: Understanding the effect of conflicting information on medication adherence for vasculitis patients, (2009)

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

Vecsey, G.: From the Men, A Few Highlights After the Deluge, (2011)

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	OPSEARCH
Abbreviation	Opsearch
ISSN (print)	0030-3887
ISSN (online)	0975-0320
Scope	Management Information Systems Computer Science Applications Information Systems Management Science and Operations Research