How to format your references using the Semigroup Forum citation style

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

Smith, B.: Perspective: complexities of flavour. Nature. 486, S6 (2012)

A journal article with 2 authors

Sun, Z.-W., Allis, C.D.: Ubiquitination of histone H2B regulates H3 methylation and gene silencing in yeast. Nature. 418, 104–108 (2002)

A journal article with 3 authors

Bennett, M.J., Lebrón, J.A., Bjorkman, P.J.: Crystal structure of the hereditary haemochromatosis protein HFE complexed with transferrin receptor. Nature. 403, 46–53 (2000)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Valladas, H., Clottes, J., Geneste, J.M., Garcia, M.A., Arnold, M., Cachier, H., Tisnérat-Laborde, N.: Palaeolithic paintings. Evolution of prehistoric cave art. Nature. 413, 479 (2001)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Nomura, S.: Micromechanics with Mathematica. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK (2016)

An edited book

Schmidt, H.H.H.W., Hofmann, F., Stasch, J.-P. eds: cGMP: Generators, Effectors and Therapeutic Implications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2009)

A chapter in an edited book

Custódio, R.F., Vigil, M.A.G., Romani, J., Pereira, F.C., da Silva Fraga, J.: Optimized Certificates – A New Proposal for Efficient Electronic Document Signature Validation. In: Mjølsnes, S.F., Mauw, S., and Katsikas, S.K. (eds.) Public Key Infrastructure: 5th European PKI Workshop: Theory and Practice, EuroPKI 2008 Trondheim, Norway, June 16-17, 2008 Proceedings. pp. 49–59. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2008)

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 Semigroup Forum.

Blog post

Andrew, E.: Lyme Disease: A Ticking Time Bomb

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: Transportation Programs: Challenges Facing the Department of Transportation and Congress. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2009)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Graves, K.A.: An Exploration of Organizational Commitment among Generation X Leaders, (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

Brantley, B.: Big Dreams and Ideas in Chicago, (2017)

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	Semigroup Forum
Abbreviation	Agron. J.
ISSN (print)	0037-1912
ISSN (online)	1432-2137
Scope	Algebra and Number Theory