How to format your references using the Publications citation style

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

Smaglik, P. Blurred Vision. Nature 2002, 420, A19, A21, A23.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ionescu, A.M.; Riel, H. Tunnel Field-Effect Transistors as Energy-Efficient Electronic Switches. Nature 2011, 479, 329–337.

A journal article with 3 authors

Walker, J.R.; Corpina, R.A.; Goldberg, J. Structure of the Ku Heterodimer Bound to DNA and Its Implications for Double-Strand Break Repair. Nature 2001, 412, 607–614.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Okajima, T.; Xu, A.; Lei, L.; Irvine, K.D. Chaperone Activity of Protein O-Fucosyltransferase 1 Promotes Notch Receptor Folding. Science 2005, 307, 1599–1603.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Stahl, S. Real Analysis; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2011; ISBN 9781118096864.

An edited book

Magnesium in Human Health and Disease; Watson, R.R., Preedy, V.R., Zibadi, S., Eds.; Nutrition and Health; Humana Press: Totowa, NJ, 2013; ISBN 9781627030434.

A chapter in an edited book

Andina, D.; Vega-Corona, A.; Seijas, J.I.; Alarcòn, M.J. Application of Neural Networks. In Computational Intelligence: for Engineering and Manufacturing; Andina, D., Pham, D.T., Eds.; Springer US: Boston, MA, 2007; pp. 93–108 ISBN 9780387374505.

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 Publications.

Blog post

Andrew, E. New Biobattery Fueled By Sweat (accessed on 30 October 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

Government Accountability Office Guide for Evaluating Automated Systems; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1977;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gopalappa, C. Three Essays on Analytical Models to Improve Early Detection of Cancer. Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida: Tampa, FL, 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

Kelly, C. An Unorthodox Life Yields a Novelist of Promise. New York Times 2011, A27B.

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	Publications
ISSN (online)	2304-6775
Scope