How to format your references using the Progress in Natural Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Progress in Natural Science. 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

Liechty J. Scientists and bankers - a new model army. Nature. 2012 Apr 11;484(7393):143.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gonnermann HM, Manga M. Explosive volcanism may not be an inevitable consequence of magma fragmentation. Nature. 2003 Nov 27;426(6965):432–5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Baxt LA, Garza-Mayers AC, Goldberg MB. Bacterial subversion of host innate immune pathways. Science. 2013 May 10;340(6133):697–701.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Algra RE, Verheijen MA, Borgström MT, Feiner LF, Immink G, van Enckevort WJP, et al. Twinning superlattices in indium phosphide nanowires. Nature. 2008 Nov 20;456(7220):369–72.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Habib MAR. Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell; 2010.

An edited book

Tanaka M, editor. Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasm of the Pancreas. Tokyo: Springer Japan; 2014. VIII, 204 p. 80 illus., 38 illus. in color.

A chapter in an edited book

Shtub A, Karni R. Marketing Considerations. In: Karni R, editor. ERP: The Dynamics of Supply Chain and Process Management. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2010. p. 73–86.

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 Progress in Natural Science.

Blog post

Fang J. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2014. Electric Eels Remotely Control the Movements of Their Prey.

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

Government Accountability Office. Missile Development: Development Status of the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1987 Aug. Report No.: NSIAD-87-168.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Goldstein J. Murder in Colonial Albany: European and Indian Responses to Cross-Cultural Murders [Doctoral dissertation]. [Washington, DC]: George Washington University; 2012.

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

Haberman M, Thrush G, Schmidt MS, Baker P. How Festering Anger at Comey Ended in Firing. New York Times. 2017 May 10;A1.

In-text citations

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

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	Progress in Natural Science
ISSN (print)	1002-0071
Scope