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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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]
Gray R. Evolution. Pushing the time barrier in the quest for language roots. Science 2005;309:2007–8.
A journal article with 2 authors
[1]
Ohman MD, Hirche HJ. Density-dependent mortality in an oceanic copepod population. Nature 2001;412:638–41.
A journal article with 3 authors
[1]
Afek I, Ambar O, Silberberg Y. High-NOON states by mixing quantum and classical light. Science 2010;328:879–81.
A journal article with 7 or more authors
[1]
Lin Y, Gill ME, Koubova J, Page DC. Germ cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic factors govern meiotic initiation in mouse embryos. Science 2008;322:1685–7.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
[1]
Ahonen TT. m-Profits. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.
An edited book
[1]
Mick G, Guastella V, editors. Chronic Postsurgical Pain. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014.
A chapter in an edited book
[1]
Simon A, Davey B, Flaiz B, Karpathiou V, Wickramasinghe N. A Multi-centred Empirical Study to Measure and Validate User Satisfaction with Hospital Information Services in Australia and Germany. In: Wickramasinghe N, Troshani I, Tan J, editors. Contemporary Consumer Health Informatics, Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016, p. 91–100.

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]
Andrew E. Is The Global Warming ‘Hiatus’ Over? IFLScience 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/global-warming-hiatus-over/ (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. Urban Transportation: Issues Related to the South Corridor Study. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1993.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
[1]
Espinoza E. Understanding help-seeking behavior among at-risk Latino male high school students. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, 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]
Brantley B. King Leontes Is Insane. It’s as Simple (and as Scary) as That. New York Times 2016:C7.

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 titleOptics and Lasers in Engineering
AbbreviationOpt. Lasers Eng.
ISSN (print)0143-8166
ScopeElectrical and Electronic Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

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