How to format your references using the Physics of Plasmas citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Physics of Plasmas. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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 D. Sarewitz, “The dubious benefits of broader impact,” Nature 475(7355), 141 (2011).

A journal article with 2 authors

¹ C.E. Renshaw, and E.M. Schulson, “Universal behaviour in compressive failure of brittle materials,” Nature 412(6850), 897–900 (2001).

A journal article with 3 authors

¹ H. Kim, J. Chen, and X. Yu, “Ubiquitin-binding protein RAP80 mediates BRCA1-dependent DNA damage response,” Science 316(5828), 1202–1205 (2007).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

¹ W.-W. Zhao, Z. Liu, S. Shan, W.-W. Zhang, J. Wang, Z.-Y. Ma, J.-J. Xu, and H.-Y. Chen, “Bismuthoxyiodide nanoflakes/titania nanotubes arrayed p-n heterojunction and its application for photoelectrochemical bioanalysis,” Sci. Rep. 4, 4426 (2014).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

¹ H. Sluga, Wittgenstein (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK, 2011).

An edited book

¹ J.E. Stiglitz, and M. Guzman, editors , Contemporary Issues in Macroeconomics: Lessons from The Crisis and Beyond (Palgrave Macmillan UK, London, 2016).

A chapter in an edited book

¹ P. Chalfoun, and C. Frasson, “Optimal Affective Conditions for Subconscious Learning in a 3D Intelligent Tutoring System,” in Human-Computer Interaction. Interacting in Various Application Domains: 13th International Conference, HCI International 2009, San Diego, CA, USA, July 19-24, 2009, Proceedings, Part IV, edited by J.A. Jacko, (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009), pp. 39–48.

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 Plasmas.

Blog post

¹ T. Hale, “Man Drinks Five Energy Drinks A Day And Develops Hepatitis,” IFLScience, (2016).

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, Telling America’s Story to the World--Problems and Issues (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1974).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

¹ J.L. Seger, The Occupy Movement: Signs of Cultural Shifts in Group Processes Shaped by Place, Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2017.

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 J.B. Stewart, “Musk Has Trump’s Ear, and Market Takes Note,” New York Times, B1 (2017).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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 Plasmas
Abbreviation	Phys. Plasmas
ISSN (print)	1070-664X
ISSN (online)	1089-7674
Scope	Condensed Matter Physics