How to format your references using the OR Spectrum citation style

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

Cyranoski D (2004) Will creativity thrive in an island paradise? Nature 429:220–221

A journal article with 2 authors

Kim W-Y, Snider WD (2008) Neuroscience. Overcoming inhibitions. Science 322:869–872

A journal article with 3 authors

Dian BC, Clarkson JR, Zwier TS (2004) Direct measurement of energy thresholds to conformational isomerization in tryptamine. Science 303:1169–1173

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Bierman MJ, Lau YKA, Kvit AV, et al (2008) Dislocation-driven nanowire growth and Eshelby twist. Science 320:1060–1063

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Donald H, Robert D. G (2006) Longitudinal Data Analysis: Hedeker/Longitudinal. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Józefowska J, Weglarz J (eds) (2006) Perspectives in Modern Project Scheduling. Springer US, Boston, MA

A chapter in an edited book

Kohlas J, Schneuwly C (2009) Information Algebra. In: Sommaruga G (ed) Formal Theories of Information: From Shannon to Semantic Information Theory and General Concepts of Information. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 95–127

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 OR Spectrum.

Blog post

Hamilton K (2016) Are We Sleeping Less Than We Used To? Here Are The Facts. 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 (2009) Next Generation Air Transportation System: FAA Faces Challenges in Responding to Task Force Recommendations. 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

Garraway OL (2008) A study of the relationship between corporate leaders’ beliefs and the firm’s strategic decisions. Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix

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

Andrews M (2017) Venus Williams Investigated in Fatal Crash. New York Times B12

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Cyranoski 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Cyranoski 2004; Kim and Snider 2008).

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

Two authors: (Kim and Snider 2008)
Three or more authors: (Bierman et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	OR Spectrum
Abbreviation	OR Spectr.
ISSN (print)	0171-6468
ISSN (online)	1436-6304
Scope	Management Science and Operations Research