How to format your references using the Optimization and Engineering citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Optimization and 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.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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
Sykes MV (2008) Planetary science. The planet debate continues. Science 319:1765
A journal article with 2 authors
Knauth LP, Kennedy MJ (2009) The late Precambrian greening of the Earth. Nature 460:728–732
A journal article with 3 authors
Kavanagh KD, Evans AR, Jernvall J (2007) Predicting evolutionary patterns of mammalian teeth from development. Nature 449:427–432
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Kanadia RN, Johnstone KA, Mankodi A, et al (2003) A muscleblind knockout model for myotonic dystrophy. Science 302:1978–1980

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Killops S, Killops V (2004) Introduction to Organic Geochemistry. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Malden, MA USA
An edited book
Siddiqui MW, Ayala Zavala JF, Hwang C-A (andy) (eds) (2016) Postharvest Management Approaches for Maintaining Quality of Fresh Produce, 1st ed. 2016. Springer International Publishing, Cham
A chapter in an edited book
Défago X, Gradinariu M, Messika S, Raipin-Parvédy P (2006) Fault-Tolerant and Self-stabilizing Mobile Robots Gathering. In: Dolev S (ed) Distributed Computing: 20th International Symposium, DISC 2006, Stockholm, Sweden, September 18-20, 2006. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 46–60

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 Optimization and Engineering.

Blog post
Andrews R (2016) “Maleness Gene” Could Be Key To Destroying Malaria Mosquitos. In: IFLScience. Accessed 30 Oct 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
Government Accountability Office (1992) National Assessment Technical Quality. 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
Subramanian K (2003) Mechanisms and Effect of Microstructure on High Temperature Deformation of Gamma-TiAl Based Alloys. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University

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
Wagner J (2017) New Stat for a Slugger: Back Page Appearances. New York Times B9

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Sykes 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Sykes 2008; Knauth and Kennedy 2009).

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

  • Two authors: (Knauth and Kennedy 2009)
  • Three or more authors: (Kanadia et al. 2003)

About the journal

Full journal titleOptimization and Engineering
AbbreviationOptim. Eng.
ISSN (print)1389-4420
ISSN (online)1573-2924
ScopeSoftware
Aerospace Engineering
Civil and Structural Engineering
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Mechanical Engineering
Control and Optimization

Other styles