How to format your references using the Optics Communications citation style

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

F.N. von Hippel, Energy. Plutonium and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, Science 293 (2001) 2397–2398.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

S.A. Stern, P.R. Weissman, Rapid collisional evolution of comets during the formation of the Oort cloud, Nature 409 (2001) 589–591.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

L.J. Gregoire, A.J. Payne, P.J. Valdes, Deglacial rapid sea level rises caused by ice-sheet saddle collapses, Nature 487 (2012) 219–222.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

K.M. Giacomini, R.M. Krauss, D.M. Roden, M. Eichelbaum, M.R. Hayden, Y. Nakamura, When good drugs go bad, Nature 446 (2007) 975–977.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

K. Kario, Essential Manual of 24 Hour Blood Pressure Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2015.

An edited book

[1]

R.C. Benson, Site Characterization in Karst and Pseudokarst Terraines: Practical Strategies and Technology for Practicing Engineers, Hydrologists and Geologists, 1st ed. 2016, Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

R.N.M. Watson, S.J. Murdoch, K. Gudka, J. Anderson, P.G. Neumann, B. Laurie, Towards a Theory of Application Compartmentalisation, in: B. Christianson, J. Malcolm, F. Stajano, J. Anderson, J. Bonneau (Eds.), Security Protocols XXI: 21st International Workshop, Cambridge, UK, March 19-20, 2013, Revised Selected Papers, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2013: pp. 19–27.

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 Communications.

Blog post

[1]

S. Luntz, World’s Oldest Ground Axe Discovered In Australia, IFLScience (2016).

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, Food Assistance: Child Care Centers Sponsored by Schools Participating in the National School Lunch Program, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1998.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

J.L. Boyd, Interactive simulations: Improving learning retention in knowledge-based online training courses, Doctoral dissertation, Capella University, 2017.

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]

J. Williams, Zinzi Clemmons, New York Times (2017) C18.

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 Communications
Abbreviation	Opt. Commun.
ISSN (print)	0030-4018
Scope	Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Electrical and Electronic Engineering Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics