How to format your references using the Symmetry citation style

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

Bass, J. Circadian Topology of Metabolism. Nature 2012, 491, 348–356.

A journal article with 2 authors

Pyc, M.A.; Rawson, K.A. Why Testing Improves Memory: Mediator Effectiveness Hypothesis. Science 2010, 330, 335.

A journal article with 3 authors

Bloxham, J.; Zatman, S.; Dumberry, M. The Origin of Geomagnetic Jerks. Nature 2002, 420, 65–68.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Reed, R.D.; Papa, R.; Martin, A.; Hines, H.M.; Counterman, B.A.; Pardo-Diaz, C.; Jiggins, C.D.; Chamberlain, N.L.; Kronforst, M.R.; Chen, R.; et al. Optix Drives the Repeated Convergent Evolution of Butterfly Wing Pattern Mimicry. Science 2011, 333, 1137–1141.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Corten, R. Computational Approaches to Studying the Co-Evolution of Networks and Behavior in Social Dilemmas; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2014; ISBN 9781118762912.

An edited book

Nordic Contributions in IS Research: Third Scandinavian Conference on Information Systems, SCIS 2012, Sigtuna, Sweden, August 17–20, 2012. Proceedings; Keller, C., Wiberg, M., Ågerfalk, P.J., Eriksson Lundström, J.S.Z., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2012; Vol. 124; ISBN 9783642322693.

A chapter in an edited book

Velupillai, H.; Mokhonoana, P. Evaluation of Registry Data Removal by Shredder Programs. In Advances in Digital Forensics IV; Ray, I., Shenoi, S., Eds.; IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing; Springer US: Boston, MA, 2008; pp. 51–58 ISBN 9780387849263.

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 Symmetry.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Our Oceans Give New Insights On Elements Made In Supernovae (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 Reports Issued in October 1988; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1988;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Spindel, S.A. Evaluation of Optical Sensor Platforms for Multiplexed Detection of Proteins. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park: College Park, MD, 2014.

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

Billard, M. Revisiting the Classics Of an Earlier Generation. New York Times 2013, E7.

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	Symmetry
Abbreviation	Symmetry (Basel)
ISSN (online)	2073-8994
Scope	Chemistry (miscellaneous) Computer Science (miscellaneous) General Mathematics Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)