How to format your references using the Science Advances citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Science Advances. 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.
E. E. Sarmiento, Comment on the paleobiology and classification of Ardipithecus ramidus. Science. 328, 1105; author reply 1105 (2010).
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
S. Borgani, L. Guzzo, X-ray clusters of galaxies as tracers of structure in the Universe. Nature. 409, 39–45 (2001).
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
S. A. Desai, S. M. Bezrukov, J. Zimmerberg, A voltage-dependent channel involved in nutrient uptake by red blood cells infected with the malaria parasite. Nature. 406, 1001–1005 (2000).
A journal article with 6 or more authors
1.
C. Moreno, M. Vilas-Varela, B. Kretz, A. Garcia-Lekue, M. V. Costache, M. Paradinas, M. Panighel, G. Ceballos, S. O. Valenzuela, D. Peña, A. Mugarza, Bottom-up synthesis of multifunctional nanoporous graphene. Science. 360, 199–203 (2018).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
M. Furmston, Powell-Smith & Furmston’s Building Contract Casebook (Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, UK, 2008).
An edited book
1.
A. Bikakis, X. Zheng, Eds., Multi-disciplinary Trends in Artificial Intelligence: 9th International Workshop, MIWAI 2015, Fuzhou, China, November 13-15, 2015, Proceedings (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 1st ed. 2015., 2015), vol. 9426 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
R. M. Heiberger, E. Neuwirth, "Normal and t Workbook" in R Through Excel: A Spreadsheet Interface for Statistics, Data Analysis, and Graphics, E. Neuwirth, Ed. (Springer, New York, NY, 2009), pp. 81–103.

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 Science Advances.

Blog post
1.
E. Andrew, Paralysed Patient Makes Natural Movements Using Robotics And The Power Of Thought. IFLScience (2015), (available at https://www.iflscience.com/technology/paralysed-patient-makes-natural-movements-using-robotics-and-power-thought/).

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, “Medicare: Information Systems Modernization Needs Stronger Management and Support” (GAO-01-824, 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.
L. A. May, thesis, Lindenwood University, St. Charles, MO (2009).

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.
J. Glanz, As Energy Secretary, Perry May Be Pressed to Resume Nuclear Tests. New York Times (2016), p. A12.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text

About the journal

Full journal titleScience Advances
AbbreviationSci. Adv.
ISSN (online)2375-2548
Scope

Other styles