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]

Sheen J. Phosphorelay and transcription control in cytokinin signal transduction. Science 2002;296:1650–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Grimmer MR, Costello JF. Cancer: Oncogene brought into the loop. Nature 2016;529:34–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Shanavas KV, Parker D, Singh DJ. Theoretical study on the role of dynamics on the unusual magnetic properties in MnBi. Sci Rep 2014;4:7222.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Gonzalez F, Delahodde A, Kodadek T, Johnston SA. Recruitment of a 19S proteasome subcomplex to an activated promoter. Science 2002;296:548–50.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Koch HJ. Practical Guide to International Standardization for Electrical Engineers. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2016.

An edited book

[1]

Tominaga J. Optical Near-Field Recording: Science and Technology. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Keagle MB, Gersen SL. Basic Cytogenetics Laboratory Procedures. In: Gersen SL, Keagle MB, editors. The Principles of Clinical Cytogenetics, New York, NY: Springer; 2013, p. 53–65.

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. Volcanoes May Have Heated Mars To Make Liquid Water Possible. IFLScience 2014.

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. Public Works Consolidation: Jacksonville Naval Public Works Consolidation. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1992.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Currano LJ. Latching microelectromechanical shock sensor systems: Design, modeling, and experiments. Doctoral dissertation. University of Maryland, College Park, 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]

Goldman R. Saudis Arrest Woman Seen In Miniskirt In Video Clip. New York Times 2017:A4.

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

Research and Writing Guides