How to format your references using the Physics Letters B citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Physics Letters B. 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]

M. Stewart, Structural biology. Nuclear trafficking, Science 302 (2003) 1513–1514.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

P. Nachev, M. Husain, Comment on “Detecting awareness in the vegetative state,” Science 315 (2007) 1221; author reply 1221.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Z. Jin, P. Li, D. Xiao, Enhanced electrocatalytic performance for oxygen reduction via active interfaces of layer-by-layered titanium nitride/titanium carbonitride structures, Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 6712.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

S. Gröblacher, T. Paterek, R. Kaltenbaek, C. Brukner, M. Zukowski, M. Aspelmeyer, A. Zeilinger, An experimental test of non-local realism, Nature 446 (2007) 871–875.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

A. Perez, IP, Ethernet and MPLS Networks, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ USA, 2013.

An edited book

[1]

D. Ślęzak, J. Yao, J.F. Peters, W. Ziarko, X. Hu, eds., Rough Sets, Fuzzy Sets, Data Mining, and Granular Computing: 10th International Conference, RSFDGrC 2005, Regina, Canada, August 31 - September 3, 2005, Proceedings, Part II, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

F. Ren, J. Zhai, Contemporary Demands for Science and Technology Communication and Popularization, in: J. Zhai (Ed.), Communication and Popularization of Science and Technology in China, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2014: pp. 127–158.

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 Physics Letters B.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Gravitational Wave Discovery Still Clouded By Galactic Dust, 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, Mass Transit: Challenges in Securing Transit Systems, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2002.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

C. Martinez, An after-school program at the middle school level for at-risk youth, Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, 2010.

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]

L.F. Burghardt, For Sabbath on Saturdays, Fewer Open Shops, New York Times (2008) LI13.

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	Physics Letters B
Abbreviation	Phys. Lett. B
ISSN (print)	0370-2693
Scope	Nuclear and High Energy Physics