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

Bourzac, K., 2013. Water: The flow of technology. Nature 501, S4-6.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ionescu, A.M., Riel, H., 2011. Tunnel field-effect transistors as energy-efficient electronic switches. Nature 479, 329–337.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sims, D.W., Andrews, P.L., Young, J.Z., 2000. Stomach rinsing in rays. Nature 404, 566.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Jopling, C.L., Yi, M., Lancaster, A.M., Lemon, S.M., Sarnow, P., 2005. Modulation of hepatitis C virus RNA abundance by a liver-specific MicroRNA. Science 309, 1577–1581.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kukushkin, A., 2004. Radio Wave Propagation in the Marine Boundary Layer. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, FRG.

An edited book

Bartolini, N., Nikoletseas, S., Sinha, P., Cardellini, V., Mahanti, A. (Eds.), 2009. Quality of Service in Heterogeneous Networks: 6th International ICST Conference on Heterogeneous Networking for Quality, Reliability, Security and Robustness, QShine 2009 and 3rd International Workshop on Advanced Architectures and Algorithms for Internet Delivery and Applications, AAA-IDEA 2009, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, November 23-25, 2009 Proceedings, Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Gualeni, S., 2015. Playing with Puzzling Philosophical Problems, in: Zagalo, N., Branco, P. (Eds.), Creativity in the Digital Age, Springer Series on Cultural Computing. Springer, London, pp. 59–74.

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

Fang, J., 2015. See-Through Shrimp-Like Creature Has a Dozen Retinas in Each Eye [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/see-through-shrimp-creature-has-dozen-retinas-each-eye/ (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, 1990. ADP Systems: HCFA’s Failure to Follow Guidelines Makes Systems Effectiveness Uncertain (No. IMTEC-90-53). 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

Peterson, G.G., 2013. Long-Term Effects of Care Management on Mortality, Hospitalizations, and Medicare Costs Among Chronically-Ill Medicare Beneficiaries (Doctoral dissertation). George Washington University, Washington, DC.

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

Kenigsberg, B., 2016. Review: ‘Videofilia (and Other Viral Syndromes)’ Is a Digital Hall of Mirrors. New York Times C11.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bourzac, 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Bourzac, 2013; Ionescu and Riel, 2011).

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

Two authors: (Ionescu and Riel, 2011)
Three or more authors: (Jopling et al., 2005)

About the journal

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