How to format your references using the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. 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

Chi KR. 2009 Microscopy: Ever-increasing resolution. Nature 462, 675–678.

A journal article with 2 authors

Wang D, Su G. 2014 New strategy to promote conversion efficiency using high-index nanostructures in thin-film solar cells. Sci. Rep. 4, 7165.

A journal article with 3 authors

Kaloni TP, Tahir M, Schwingenschlögl U. 2013 Quasi free-standing silicene in a superlattice with hexagonal boron nitride. Sci. Rep. 3, 3192.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Baby S, Johnson AJ, Govindan B, Lukose S, Gopakumar B, Koshy KC. 2013 UV induced visual cues in grasses. Sci. Rep. 3, 2738.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Pohanish RP. 2005 HazMat Data. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Bundschuh M. 2008 The IT Measurement Compendium: Estimating and Benchmarking Success with Functional Size Measurement. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Morel M. 2014 Model-Based Safety Approach for Early Validation of Integrated and Modular Avionics Architectures. In Model-Based Safety and Assessment: 4th International Symposium, IMBSA 2014, Munich, Germany, October 27-29, 2014. Proceedings (eds F Ortmeier, A Rauzy), pp. 57–69. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

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 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2015 Revealed: Asteroid That Killed The Dinosaurs Boiled The Earth’s Atmosphere. IFLScience. See https://www.iflscience.com/space/revealed-asteroid-killed-dinosaurs-boiled-earth-s-atmosphere/ (accessed on 30 October 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. 1989 Social Security: Leadership Structure for an Independent Social Security Administration.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Dolan DJ. 2017 Structural Evolution of Martin Crater Thaumasia Planum, Mars. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

(nyt) SK. 2004 World Briefing | Europe: Russia: After Attack, Syria Is Said To Stop Sending Students. New York Times, 23 November. , A12.

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	Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A
Abbreviation	Philos. Trans. A Math. Phys. Eng. Sci.
ISSN (print)	1364-503X
ISSN (online)	1471-2962
Scope	General Engineering General Mathematics General Physics and Astronomy