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

Sapolsky, R.M.: The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science. 308, 648–652 (2005)

A journal article with 2 authors

Cameron, R., Schüssler, M.: Solar physics. The crucial role of surface magnetic fields for the solar dynamo. Science. 347, 1333–1335 (2015)

A journal article with 3 authors

Glazier, A.M., Nadeau, J.H., Aitman, T.J.: Finding genes that underlie complex traits. Science. 298, 2345–2349 (2002)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Hu, J.H., Miller, S.M., Geurts, M.H., Tang, W., Chen, L., Sun, N., Zeina, C.M., Gao, X., Rees, H.A., Lin, Z., Liu, D.R.: Evolved Cas9 variants with broad PAM compatibility and high DNA specificity. Nature. 556, 57–63 (2018)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Buchenau, J.: The Last Caudillo. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK (2011)

An edited book

Barták, R., Milano, M. eds: Integration of AI and OR Techniques in Constraint Programming for Combinatorial Optimization Problems: Second International Conference, CPAIOR 2005, Prague, Czech Republic, May 31-June 1, 2005. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2005)

A chapter in an edited book

Basile, G., Bernardin, C., Jara, M., Komorowski, T., Olla, S.: Thermal Conductivity in Harmonic Lattices with Random Collisions. In: Lepri, S. (ed.) Thermal Transport in Low Dimensions: From Statistical Physics to Nanoscale Heat Transfer. pp. 215–237. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2016)

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

Andrew, E.: Scientists Turn to YouTube to Understand Chelyabinsk Asteroid Impact, https://www.iflscience.com/space/scientists-turn-youtube-understand-chelyabinsk-asteroid-impact/

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: Better Management Needed in Automating the Federal Judiciary. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1981)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Mukherjee, N.: Development of High Sensitivity Bending Mode Polymer Piezoelectric Devices for Inner Ear Implantation, (2003)

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

Lee, L.: Anarchy? No, It’s Art, (2008)

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