How to format your references using the Optimization Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Optimization Letters. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Spurgeon, D.: Ontario joins the genomics goldrush. Nature. 404, 692 (2000)

A journal article with 2 authors

Burton, D.R., Dwek, R.A.: Immunology. Sugar determines antibody activity. Science. 313, 627–628 (2006)

A journal article with 3 authors

Sato, T., Atomi, H., Imanaka, T.: Archaeal type III RuBisCOs function in a pathway for AMP metabolism. Science. 315, 1003–1006 (2007)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Ren, D., Navarro, B., Xu, H., Yue, L., Shi, Q., Clapham, D.E.: A prokaryotic voltage-gated sodium channel. Science. 294, 2372–2375 (2001)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bonald, T., Feuillet, M.: Network Performance Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ (2011)

An edited book

Abdulwahed, M., Hasna, M.O., Froyd, J.E. eds: Advances in Engineering Education in the Middle East and North Africa: Current Status, and Future Insights. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2016)

A chapter in an edited book

Nerland, M., Jensen, K.: Objectual Practice and Learning in Professional Work. In: Billett, S. (ed.) Learning Through Practice: Models, Traditions, Orientations and Approaches. pp. 82–103. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht (2010)

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 Letters.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J.: This Stunning Image Of Saturn’s Rings Contains A Surprise, https://www.iflscience.com/space/stunning-image-saturn-contains-more-one-surprise/

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: Railroad Regulation: Changes in Railroad Rates and Service Quality Since 1990. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1999)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Magda, B.: Increasing efficacy of emergency departments through systems analysis of enterprise architecture: Mitigating the impact of technological change, (2009)

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

Gustines, G.G.: Revisiting an Effort to Expose the Evils of ‘Mein Kampf,’ (2016)

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 Letters
Abbreviation	Optim. Lett.
ISSN (print)	1862-4472
ISSN (online)	1862-4480
Scope	Control and Optimization