How to format your references using the Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering. 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

Kenyon CJ (2010) The genetics of ageing. Nature 464:504–512

A journal article with 2 authors

Stern DL, Orgogozo V (2009) Is genetic evolution predictable? Science 323:746–751

A journal article with 3 authors

Rideout WM 3rd, Eggan K, Jaenisch R (2001) Nuclear cloning and epigenetic reprogramming of the genome. Science 293:1093–1098

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Mecklenbräuker I, Saijo K, Zheng N-Y, et al (2002) Protein kinase Cdelta controls self-antigen-induced B-cell tolerance. Nature 416:860–865

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sheldrake AL (2005) Handbook of Electrical Engineering. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Arzarello F (2012) Dalla geometria di Euclide alla geometria dell’Universo: Geometria su sfera, cilindro, cono, pseudosfera. Springer, Milano

A chapter in an edited book

Guex J, Galster F, Hammer Ø (2016) The UA Method and the UAgraph Program. In: Galster F, Hammer Ø (eds) Discrete Biochronological Time Scales. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 27–50

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 Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering.

Blog post

Davis J (2015) Crows Rival Most Mammals with Their Cognitive Ability. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/crows-rival-many-mammals-their-cognitive-feats/. 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 (1981) Operation of the Copyright Royalty Tribunal. 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

Constantine S (2013) Supportive services for transitional and emancipated youth: A grant proposal. 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

Nordland R (2017) Russia Signs Agreement Expanding Syrian Bases. New York Times A6

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Kenyon 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Stern and Orgogozo 2009; Kenyon 2010).

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

Two authors: (Stern and Orgogozo 2009)
Three or more authors: (Mecklenbräuker et al. 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering
Abbreviation	Rock Mech. Rock Eng.
ISSN (print)	0723-2632
ISSN (online)	1434-453X
Scope	Geology Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology Civil and Structural Engineering General Earth and Planetary Sciences Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) General Engineering General Environmental Science