How to format your references using the Perspectives in Science citation style

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

Mackinnon, R., 2004. Structural biology. Voltage sensor meets lipid membrane. Science 306, 1304–1305.

A journal article with 2 authors

Rajagopalan, H., Lengauer, C., 2004. Aneuploidy and cancer. Nature 432, 338–341.

A journal article with 3 authors

Arora, P.K., Srivastava, A., Singh, V.P., 2014. Degradation of 4-chloro-3-nitrophenol via a novel intermediate, 4-chlororesorcinol by Pseudomonas sp. JHN. Sci. Rep. 4, 4475.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Kuznetsov, A.E., Birch, K.A., Boldyrev, A.I., Li, X., Zhai, H.-J., Wang, L.-S., 2003. All-metal antiaromatic molecule: rectangular Al4(4-) in the Li3Al4(-) anion. Science 300, 622–625.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bi, J., 2015. Sensory Discrimination Tests and Measurements. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.

An edited book

Zaoral, R. (Ed.), 2016. Money and Finance in Central Europe during the Later Middle Ages, Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Palgrave Macmillan UK, London.

A chapter in an edited book

Manis, P.B., Xie, R., Wang, Y., Marrs, G.S., Spirou, G.A., 2012. The Endbulbs of Held, in: Trussell, L.O., Popper, A.N., Fay, R.R. (Eds.), Synaptic Mechanisms in the Auditory System, Springer Handbook of Auditory Research. Springer, New York, NY, pp. 61–93.

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 Perspectives in Science.

Blog post

Andrew, D., 2016. These Bizarre Creatures Defy What We Think We Know About Plants And Animals [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/these-bizarre-creatures-defy-what-we-think-we-know-about-plants-and-animals/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 1995. Vocational Education: Changes at High School Level After Amendments to Perkins Act (No. HEHS-95-144). 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

Rabalais, M.E., 2014. STEAM: A National Study of the Integration of the Arts Into STEM Instruction and its Impact on Student Achievement (Doctoral dissertation). University of Louisiana, Lafayette, LA.

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

Kennan, G.F., 2010. OCT. 28, 1992: No Party Toppled The Soviets. New York Times F6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Mackinnon, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Mackinnon, 2004; Rajagopalan and Lengauer, 2004).

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

Two authors: (Rajagopalan and Lengauer, 2004)
Three or more authors: (Kuznetsov et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Perspectives in Science
Abbreviation	Perspect. Sci. (Neth)
ISSN (print)	2213-0209
Scope