How to format your references using the Science Bulletin citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Science Bulletin. 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	Download the output style file
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]

Butler D. France finally picks Parisian site for new synchrotron. Nature 2000;407:119–20.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Gelb MH, Hol WGJ. Parasitology. Drugs to combat tropical protozoan parasites. Science 2002;297:343–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Debs JE, Robins NP, Close JD. Physics. Measuring mass in seconds. Science 2013;339:532–3.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Eun JK, Guthrie KA, Zirpoli G, Gadi VK. In situ breast cancer and microchimerism. Sci Rep 2013;3:2192.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Alexander M, Walkenbach J. Excel® Dashboards & Reports. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc.; 2010.

An edited book

[1]

Galimberti D, Scarpini E, editors. Neurodegenerative Diseases: Clinical Aspects, Molecular Genetics and Biomarkers. London: Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Borin JF, McDougall EM. Ureteral Stent for Ureteral Stricture. In: Baba S, Ono Y, editors. Interventional Management of Urological Diseases, Tokyo: Springer Japan; 2006, p. 75–86.

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 Bulletin.

Blog post

[1]

Taub B. Teenager Uses Star Map To Discover Lost Mayan City In Central America. IFLScience 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/canadian-teenager-uses-map-stars-discovers-lost-mayan-city/ (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. Education Research: Preliminary Observations on the Institute of Education Sciences’ Research and Evaluation Efforts. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2013.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Holliday S. A case study of how DuPont reduced its environment footprint: The role of organizational change in sustainability. Doctoral dissertation. George Washington University, 2010.

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]

Leland J. Was It ‘Normal New York City Conversation’? Did Trump Speak Fast? New York Times 2017:A23.

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	Science Bulletin
Abbreviation	Sci. Bull. (Beijing)
ISSN (print)	2095-9273
Scope	Multidisciplinary