How to format your references using the Optimization citation style

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

McLaren A. Stem cells: golden opportunities with ethical baggage. Science. 2000;288(5472):1778.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Pinaud F, Dahan M. Biochemistry. Zooming into live cells. Science. 2008;320(5873):187–188.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Okada Y, Higuchi H, Hirokawa N. Processivity of the single-headed kinesin KIF1A through biased binding to tubulin. Nature. 2003;424(6948):574–577.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Greaves JS, Holland WS, Jenness T, et al. Magnetic field surrounding the starburst nucleus of the galaxy M82 from polarized dust emission. Nature. 2000;404(6779):732–733.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Jain RK, Triandis HC, Weick CW. Managing Research, Development, and Innovation. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

[1]

Irving HR, Gehring C, editors. Plant Signaling Peptides. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2012.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Bluemke I, Stepień A. Selection of Metrics for the Defect Prediction. In: Zamojski W, Mazurkiewicz J, Sugier J, et al., editors. Dependability Engineering and Complex Systems: Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Dependability and Complex Systems DepCoS-RELCOMEX June 27–July 1, 2016, Brunów, Poland. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 39–50.

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.

Blog post

[1]

Luntz S. Mysterious Phase Of Matter Prevents Superconductivity [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/physics/mysterious-phase-matter-prevents-superconductivity/.

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. Congressional Oversight: Reality and Reform. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1980. Report No.: 113595. .

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Boucher D. An action research project: Development of a pre-licensure examination review course for Emergency Medical Technician program graduates at a rural community college [Doctoral dissertation]. [Minneapolis, MN]: Capella University; 2013.

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]

Sisario B. Raynoma Singleton, Early Motown Force, Dies at 79. New York Times. 2016 Dec 4;A30.

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	Optimization
Abbreviation	Optimization
ISSN (print)	0233-1934
ISSN (online)	1029-4945
Scope	Management Science and Operations Research Applied Mathematics Control and Optimization