How to format your references using the Resources citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1.
Duncan, M.J. Planetary Science: Preventing Stars from Eating Their Young. Nature 2015, 520, 40–41.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Kottemann, M.C.; Smogorzewska, A. Fanconi Anaemia and the Repair of Watson and Crick DNA Crosslinks. Nature 2013, 493, 356–363.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Euston, D.R.; Tatsuno, M.; McNaughton, B.L. Fast-Forward Playback of Recent Memory Sequences in Prefrontal Cortex during Sleep. Science 2007, 318, 1147–1150.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
1.
Nagai, H.; Chew, S.H.; Okazaki, Y.; Funahashi, S.; Namba, T.; Kato, T.; Enomoto, A.; Jiang, L.; Akatsuka, S.; Toyokuni, S. Metamorphosis of Mesothelial Cells with Active Horizontal Motility in Tissue Culture. Sci. Rep. 2013, 3, 1144.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Alexandrovna, M.I.; Ionin, B.I.; Tebby, J.C. Alkynes in Cycloadditions; John Wiley & Sons Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2013; ISBN 9781118709313.
An edited book
1.
Advances and Technical Standards in Neurosurgery; Pickard, J.D., Akalan, N., Benes, V., Rocco, C.D., Dolenc, V.V., Antunes, J.L., Rappaport, Z.H., Schramm, J., Sindou, M., Eds.; Advances and Technical Standards in Neurosurgery; Springer: Vienna, 2011; Vol. 37; ISBN 9783709106723.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Sharma, R.; Yoder, J.; Kwon, H.; Pack, D. Vision Based Mobile Target Geo-Localization and Target Discrimination Using Bayes Detection Theory. In Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems: The 11th International Symposium; Ani Hsieh, M., Chirikjian, G., Eds.; Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2014; pp. 59–71 ISBN 9783642551451.

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 Resources.

Blog post
1.
Andrews, R. Google’s DeepMind Has An AI That Understands The Benefits Of Betrayal Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/googles-deepmind-ai-understands-the-benefits-of-betrayal/ (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
1.
Government Accountability Office Information Technology: Leading Commercial Practices for Outsourcing of Services; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2001;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Tourijigian, L. Fiscal Changes at Dunbar Elementary. Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University: Edwardsville, IL, 2015.

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
1.
(nyt), S.K. World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Soldier Kills 4 Comrades, Then Himself. New York Times 2003, A12.

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 titleResources
ISSN (online)2079-9276
Scope

Other styles