How to format your references using the Reviews in Physics citation style

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

[1]

P.A. Sanchez, Ecology. Soil fertility and hunger in Africa, Science. 295 (2002) 2019–2020.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

D. Meder, K. Simons, Cell biology. Ras on the roundabout, Science. 307 (2005) 1731–1733.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Y. Winter, J. López, O. Von Helversen, Ultraviolet vision in a bat, Nature. 425 (2003) 612–614.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

D. van Riel, V.J. Munster, E. de Wit, G.F. Rimmelzwaan, R.A.M. Fouchier, A.D.M.E. Osterhaus, T. Kuiken, H5N1 Virus Attachment to Lower Respiratory Tract, Science. 312 (2006) 399.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

D. Rios Insua, F. Ruggeri, M.P. Wiper, Bayesian Analysis of Stochastic Process Models: Ruggeri/Bayesian Analysis of Stochastic Process Models, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2012.

An edited book

[1]

E. Angelis, M.A.J. Chaplain, N. Bellomo, eds., Selected Topics in Cancer Modeling: Genesis, Evolution, Immune Competition, and Therapy, Birkhäuser, Boston, MA, 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

D.J. Irby, Working with Adult Non-Completers to Address the School Dropout Problem, in: E.R. Drame, D.J. Irby (Eds.), Black Participatory Research: Power, Identity, and the Struggle for Justice in Education, Palgrave Macmillan US, New York, NY, 2016: pp. 71–85.

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 Reviews in Physics.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Poo Transplants Can Eliminate Two Superbugs From The Gut: Mice Study, IFLScience. (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/poo-transplants-can-eliminate-two-superbugs-gut-mice-study/ (accessed October 30, 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, Working Comfortably With Video Display Terminals, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1991.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

E.A. Solano, Hindemith’s Sonata for Viola, ope 11, no.4 A compositional and historical perspective, Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, 2012.

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]

M.J. de la MERCED, Slow Trading Fails to Dent Strong Results for Banks, New York Times. (2017) B3.

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	Reviews in Physics
Abbreviation	Rev. Phys.
ISSN (print)	2405-4283
Scope

Research and Writing Guides