How to format your references using the Real-Time Systems citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Real-Time Systems. 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

Juma C (2011) Preventing hunger: biotechnology is key. Nature 479:471–472

A journal article with 2 authors

Volz J, Rauschenbeutel A (2013) Applied physics. Triggering an optical transistor with one photon. Science 341:725–726

A journal article with 3 authors

Fox CG, Chadwick WW Jr, Embley RW (2001) Direct observation of a submarine volcanic eruption from a sea-floor instrument caught in a lava flow. Nature 412:727–729

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Neese B, Chu B, Lu S-G, et al (2008) Large electrocaloric effect in ferroelectric polymers near room temperature. Science 321:821–823

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bittner M (2014) Temporality: Universals and Variation. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Oxford, UK

An edited book

De Cecco CN (2014) MDCT and MRI of the Heart. Springer, Milano

A chapter in an edited book

Byun JS (jason), Kwak Y (2009) The Scanner Data Shows Size Elasticity at Package Food Category? In: Ślęzak D, Kim T-H, Ma J, et al. (eds) U- and E-Service, Science and Technology: International Conference, UNESST 2009, Held as Part of the Future Generation Information Technology Conference, FGIT 2009, Jeju Island, Korea, December 10-12, 2009. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 19–24

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 Real-Time Systems.

Blog post

Luntz S (2014) Lockheed Martin Claim They Will Have Nuclear Fusion Reactors That Fit On A Truck Within A Decade. In: IFLScience. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1993) International Aviation: Measures by European Community Could Limit U.S. Airlines’ Ability to Compete Abroad. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Norris C (2014) What is Lost Along the Way. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Gustines GG (2013) Superman at 75: Still Going Strong. New York Times C3

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Juma 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Juma 2011; Volz and Rauschenbeutel 2013).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Volz and Rauschenbeutel 2013)
Three or more authors: (Neese et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Real-Time Systems
Abbreviation	Real-Time Syst.
ISSN (print)	0922-6443
ISSN (online)	1573-1383
Scope	Computer Networks and Communications Computer Science Applications Control and Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Control and Optimization Modelling and Simulation