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

Nogrady B (2014) Immunotherapy: Chemical tricks. Nature 513:S10-1

A journal article with 2 authors

Grzybowski BA, Whitesides GM (2002) Dynamic aggregation of chiral spinners. Science 296:718–721

A journal article with 3 authors

Ferrand Y, Crump MP, Davis AP (2007) A synthetic lectin analog for biomimetic disaccharide recognition. Science 318:619–622

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Sereno PC, Larsson HC, Sidor CA, Gado B (2001) The giant crocodyliform Sarcosuchus from the Cretaceous of Africa. Science 294:1516–1519

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

El-Rewini H, Abd-El-Barr M (2004) Advanced Computer Architecture and Parallel Processing. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Albers B, Kuczma M (eds) (2016) Continuous Media with Microstructure 2, 1st ed. 2016. Springer International Publishing, Cham

A chapter in an edited book

Sun W, Zhang M (2015) The Rule of Man and the Rule of Law: The Safeguard of Law and Human Rights. In: Zhang M (ed) The “New Culture”: From a Modern Perspective. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 63–85

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

Andrew E (2015) Ultrasound-Activated Bubbles Could Help Make Cancer Drugs More Effective And Less Nasty. 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 (1988) Vocational Education: Information on the National Research Center’s Grant Award Process. 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

Leesombatpiboon P (2010) Thailand’s energy security: Strategic Petroleum Reserve and its economic impacts. Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University

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

David Goodman J, Schweber N (2015) Gunman Kills One and Wounds Two Near Penn Station. New York Times A19

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Nogrady 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Grzybowski and Whitesides 2002; Nogrady 2014).

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

Two authors: (Grzybowski and Whitesides 2002)
Three or more authors: (Sereno et al. 2001)

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

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