How to format your references using the Royal Society Open Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Royal Society Open Science. 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

Smaglik P. 2000 And sets up a body to oversee trials. Nature 405, 607.

A journal article with 2 authors

Cooper MA, Shlaes D. 2011 Fix the antibiotics pipeline. Nature 472, 32.

A journal article with 3 authors

Veenstra GJ, Weeks DL, Wolffe AP. 2000 Distinct roles for TBP and TBP-like factor in early embryonic gene transcription in Xenopus. Science 290, 2312–2315.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Paproski RJ, Heinmiller A, Wachowicz K, Zemp RJ. 2014 Multi-wavelength photoacoustic imaging of inducible tyrosinase reporter gene expression in xenograft tumors. Sci. Rep. 4, 5329.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Gunn A, Pitt SJ. 2012 Parasitology. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Krasnogor N, Melián-Batista MB, Pérez JAM, Moreno-Vega JM, Pelta DA, editors. 2009 Nature Inspired Cooperative Strategies for Optimization (NICSO 2008). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Hirabayashi Y. 2011 Collective Recognition and Shared Identity: Factors Behind the Emergence and Mobilization Process in a Referendum Movement1. In East Asian Social Movements: Power, Protest, and Change in a Dynamic Region (eds J Broadbent, V Brockman), pp. 81–97. New York, NY: Springer.

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 Royal Society Open Science.

Blog post

Hamilton K. 2016 How Risky Are The World Economic Forum’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies For 2016? IFLScience. See https://www.iflscience.com/technology/how-risky-are-the-worlds-economic-forums-top-ten-emerging-technologies-for-2016/ (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

Government Accountability Office. 1991 SSA Computers: Long-Range Vision Needed to Guide Future Systems Modernization Efforts.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Stroot PG. 2004 Novel Reverse Transcription Method Confirms Growth Inhibition of Bacteria Exposed to Domestic Wastewater. Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH.

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

Vecsey G. 2011 Togetherness Helps Set Winner Apart. New York Times, 7 November. , F9.

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	Royal Society Open Science
Abbreviation	R. Soc. Open Sci.
ISSN (online)	2054-5703
Scope