How to format your references using the Precision Engineering citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Precision Engineering. 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]

Cerutti A. Immunology. IgA changes the rules of memory. Science 2010;328:1646–7.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Arokiaraj MC, Palacios IF. Finite element modeling of a novel self-expanding endovascular stent method in treatment of aortic aneurysms. Sci Rep 2014;4:3630.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Tarlinton RE, Meers J, Young PR. Retroviral invasion of the koala genome. Nature 2006;442:79–81.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Mechsner F, Kerzel D, Knoblich G, Prinz W. Perceptual basis of bimanual coordination. Nature 2001;414:69–73.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Hampel FR, Ronchetti EM, Rousseeuw PJ, Stahel WA. Robust Statistics. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2005.

An edited book

[1]

Hoppe A, editor. Catastrophes: Views from Natural and Human Sciences. 1st ed. 2016. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Nouri HE, Driss OB, Ghédira K. A Holonic Multiagent Model Based on a Combined Genetic Algorithm─Tabu Search for the Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Problem. In: Bajo J, Hallenborg K, Pawlewski P, Botti V, Sánchez-Pi N, Duque Méndez ND, et al., editors. Highlights of Practical Applications of Agents, Multi-Agent Systems, and Sustainability - The PAAMS Collection: International Workshops of PAAMS 2015, Salamanca, Spain, June 3-4, 2015. Proceedings, Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015, p. 43–54.

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 Precision Engineering.

Blog post

[1]

Davis J. Orangutan Found To Imitate Human Speech For The First Time. IFLScience 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/orangutan-found-to-imitate-human-speech-for-the-first-time/ (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. Aviation Weather: Status of FAA’s New Hazardous Weather Detection and Dissemination Systems. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Martinez V. The relationship between visit to a doctor and the health behaviors of children. 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]

St. John Kelly E. Teaching Doctors Sensitivity On the Most Sensitive of Exams. New York Times 1998:F7.

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	Precision Engineering
Abbreviation	Precis. Eng.
ISSN (print)	0141-6359
Scope	General Engineering