How to format your references using the Phase Transitions citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Phase Transitions. 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	Download the output style file
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

[1]

Estrada-Oyuela R. Copenhagen needs a strong lead negotiator. Nature. 2009;461(7267):1056–1057.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Wang X, Huang B. Computational study of in-plane phonon transport in Si thin films. Sci Rep. 2014;4:6399.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Das G, Talukdar P, Matile S. Fluorometric detection of enzyme activity with synthetic supramolecular pores. Science. 2002;298(5598):1600–1602.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

Reich PB, Tjoelker MG, Machado J-L, et al. Universal scaling of respiratory metabolism, size and nitrogen in plants. Nature. 2006;439(7075):457–461.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Staebler P. Human Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2017.

An edited book

[1]

Hartman-Stein PE, LaRue A, editors. Enhancing Cognitive Fitness in Adults: A Guide to the Use and Development of Community-Based Programs. 1st ed. New York, NY: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Orlov YV, Aguilar LT. Elements of Nonsmooth Analysis. In: Aguilar LT, editor. Advanced H∞ Control: Towards Nonsmooth Theory and Applications. New York, NY: Springer; 2014. p. 67–80.

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 Phase Transitions.

Blog post

[1]

Davis J. Enormous Fish-Eating Spiders Surge In Numbers. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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

[1]

Government Accountability Office. Higher Education: Information Sharing Could Help Institutions Identify and Address Challenges Some Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Students Face. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2007. Report No.: GAO-07-925. .

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Collins K. Learning to live in the layers: Traveling soul’s way through poetry [Doctoral dissertation]. [Carpinteria, CA]: Pacifica Graduate Institute; 2014.

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

[1]

Pilon M. Sports Access For Disabled Is Clarified. New York Times. 2013 Jan 26;D5.

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	Phase Transitions
Abbreviation	Phase Transitions
ISSN (print)	0141-1594
ISSN (online)	1029-0338
Scope	General Materials Science Instrumentation