How to format your references using the Optics and Lasers in Engineering citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Optics and Lasers in Engineering. 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]

King A. Astronomy. Testing the limits of accretion. Science 2014;343:1318–9.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Birney E, Soranzo N. Human genomics: The end of the start for population sequencing. Nature 2015;526:52–3.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Pronin SV, Reiher CA, Shenvi RA. Stereoinversion of tertiary alcohols to tertiary-alkyl isonitriles and amines. Nature 2013;501:195–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Itzhaki I, Maizels L, Huber I, Zwi-Dantsis L, Caspi O, Winterstern A, et al. Modelling the long QT syndrome with induced pluripotent stem cells. Nature 2011;471:225–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Hagen J. Industrial Catalysis. Weinheim, FRG: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2005.

An edited book

[1]

McAlpine SR, Edkins AL, editors. Heat Shock Protein Inhibitors: Success Stories. vol. 19. 1st ed. 2016. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Alves V, Matos P Jr, Cole L, Vasconcelos A, Borba P, Ramalho G. Extracting and Evolving Code in Product Lines with Aspect-Oriented Programming. In: Rashid A, Aksit M, editors. Transactions on Aspect-Oriented Software Development IV, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2007, p. 117–42.

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 Optics and Lasers in Engineering.

Blog post

[1]

O`Callaghan J. NASA Tests Buoyant Rover That Could Explore Europa’s Ocean. IFLScience 2015.

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 Problems of Management Information Systems: Why They Fail. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1972.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Munchel BF. Exploratory Study of Counseling Professionals’ Attitudes Toward Distance Clinical Supervision. Doctoral dissertation. University of South Florida, 2015.

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]

Vecsey G. Ryan Tries to Flatten A Persistent Opponent. New York Times 2010:B10.

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	Optics and Lasers in Engineering
Abbreviation	Opt. Lasers Eng.
ISSN (print)	0143-8166
Scope	Electrical and Electronic Engineering Mechanical Engineering Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics