How to format your references using the Physics of Life Reviews citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Physics of Life Reviews. 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]

Bilham R. Geophysics. Dangerous tectonics, fragile buildings, and tough decisions. Science 2006;311:1873–5.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Miller TM, Cleveland DW. Medicine. Treating neurodegenerative diseases with antibiotics. Science 2005;307:361–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Davis SJ, Caldeira K, Matthews HD. Future CO2 emissions and climate change from existing energy infrastructure. Science 2010;329:1330–3.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Heck PR, Schmitz B, Baur H, Halliday AN, Wieler R. Fast delivery of meteorites to Earth after a major asteroid collision. Nature 2004;430:323–5.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Equipment Testing Procedures Committee. Continuous Direct-Heat Rotary Dryers. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2005.

An edited book

[1]

Bonizzoni P, Brattka V, Löwe B, editors. The Nature of Computation. Logic, Algorithms, Applications: 9th Conference on Computability in Europe, CiE 2013, Milan, Italy, July 1-5, 2013. Proceedings. vol. 7921. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Finkbeiner B, Kuhtz L. Monitor Circuits for LTL with Bounded and Unbounded Future. In: Bensalem S, Peled DA, editors. Runtime Verification: 9th International Workshop, RV 2009, Grenoble, France, June 26-28, 2009. Selected Papers, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009, p. 60–75.

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 of Life Reviews.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. Oxytocin May Benefit Some Children With Autism, But It’s Not The Next Wonder Drug. IFLScience 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/oxytocin-may-benefit-some-children-autism-it-s-not-next-wonder-drug/ (accessed October 30, 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. Information Technology: Health Care Financing Administration’s Budget Process Needs Improvement. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1989.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Flynn MJ. Lifeguard employability skills. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, 2013.

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]

Kishkovsky S. Oleg Yefremov, 72, Moscow Theater Director. New York Times 2000:A11.

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 of Life Reviews
Abbreviation	Phys. Life Rev.
ISSN (print)	1571-0645
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Artificial Intelligence General Physics and Astronomy