How to format your references using the Photonics citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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.
Brook, R.J. W. David Kingery (1926-2000). Nature 2000, 406, 582.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Rubin, A.F.; Green, P. Comment on “The Consensus Coding Sequences of Human Breast and Colorectal Cancers.” Science 2007, 317, 1500.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Hansen, L.N.; Zimmerman, M.E.; Kohlstedt, D.L. Laboratory Measurements of the Viscous Anisotropy of Olivine Aggregates. Nature 2012, 492, 415–418.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
1.
Guo, L.; Liang, P.; Zhou, X.; Gao, X. Novel Mutations and Mutation Combinations of Ryanodine Receptor in a Chlorantraniliprole Resistant Population of Plutella Xylostella (L.). Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 6924.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Fiske, J.R.; Fiske, C.A. The Big Book of Benefit Auctions; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2009; ISBN 9781118388655.
An edited book
1.
Transactions on Computational Science X: Special Issue on Security in Computing, Part I; Gavrilova, M.L., Tan, C.J.K., Moreno, E.D., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010; Vol. 6340; ISBN 9783642174988.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Einfalt, T.; Michaelides, S. Quality Control of Precipitation Data. In Precipitation: Advances in Measurement, Estimation and Prediction; Michaelides, S., Ed.; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008; pp. 101–126 ISBN 9783540776543.

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 Photonics.

Blog post
1.
Andrew, E. Holding Out For ‘The One’ Makes Evolutionary Sense, Suggests Lovebirds Study Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/holding-out-one-makes-evolutionary-sense-suggests-lovebirds-study/ (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
1.
Government Accountability Office Intellectual Property: Agencies Progress in Implementing Recent Legislation, but Enhancements Could Improve Future Plans; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2010;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Williamson, C.L. Hispanic Female Undergraduates Perception of Nursing as a Career Choice: A Phenomenological Study. Doctoral dissertation, University of Phoenix: Phoenix, AZ, 2012.

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.
Haskell, D.G. Nature’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage. New York Times 2013, A19.

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 titlePhotonics
AbbreviationPhotonics
ISSN (online)2304-6732
Scope

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