How to format your references using the Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. 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. Rewarding experience. Nature. 2003;425(6960):879.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bonilla LL, Carpio A. Materials science. Driving dislocations in graphene. Science. 2012;337(6091):161-162.

A journal article with 3 authors

Aoi S, Kunugi T, Fujiwara H. Trampoline effect in extreme ground motion. Science. 2008;322(5902):727-730.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Kabat P, van Vierssen W, Veraart J, Vellinga P, Aerts J. Climate proofing the Netherlands. Nature. 2005;438(7066):283-284.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Etheridge D. Excel® Data Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

Acocella N, Leoni R, eds. Social Pacts, Employment and Growth: A Reappraisal of Ezio Tarantelli’s Thought. Physica-Verlag HD; 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

Wawrzik T, Ludwig F, Schilling M. Magnetic Particle Imaging: Exploring Particle Mobility. In: Buzug TM, Borgert J, eds. Magnetic Particle Imaging: A Novel SPIO Nanoparticle Imaging Technique. Springer Proceedings in Physics. Springer; 2012:21-25.

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 Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.

Blog post

Andrew E. Climate Change Threatens Range of Bald Eagles and Half of American Bird Species. IFLScience.

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. Cable Television and a Regulatory Policy. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1976.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

McLeod DJ. From Fear to Freedom: Overcoming Obstacles and Living Truthfully in a Role. 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

Greenhouse L. Before the Court: Are Munis Like Milk, or Garbage? New York Times. November 6, 2007:C2.

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	Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
Abbreviation	Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom.
ISSN (print)	0951-4198
ISSN (online)	1097-0231
Scope	Analytical Chemistry Organic Chemistry Spectroscopy