How to format your references using the Systems citation style

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

Wakeham, B. UK Physics Gets a Health Check. Nature 2008, 455, 592.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bouziat, R.; Jabri, B. IMMUNOLOGY. Breaching the Gut-Vascular Barrier. Science 2015, 350, 742–743.

A journal article with 3 authors

Baron-Cohen, S.; Knickmeyer, R.C.; Belmonte, M.K. Sex Differences in the Brain: Implications for Explaining Autism. Science 2005, 310, 819–823.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Mihola, O.; Trachtulec, Z.; Vlcek, C.; Schimenti, J.C.; Forejt, J. A Mouse Speciation Gene Encodes a Meiotic Histone H3 Methyltransferase. Science 2009, 323, 373–375.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lemaire, M. Mechanics and Uncertainty; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2014; ISBN 9781118931035.

An edited book

Enterprise Information Management: When Information Becomes Inspiration; Baan, P., Ed.; Management for Professionals; Springer: New York, NY, 2013; Vol. 2; ISBN 9781461452355.

A chapter in an edited book

Bault, J.-P.; Loeuillet, L. Brain Biometrics. In The Normal and Pathological Fetal Brain: Ultrasonographic Features; Loeuillet, L., Ed.; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2015; pp. 123–130 ISBN 9783319199702.

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 Systems.

Blog post

O`Callaghan, J. Study Confirms That Comets Are Remnants Of The Early Solar System (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 Highway Safety: Fatalities in Light Trucks and Vans; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1990;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Reser, G. Assessing the Relationship between Adult Attachment and Differentiation of Self to Coparental Divorce Adjustment. Doctoral dissertation, Northcentral University: Scottsdale, AZ, 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

Pilon, M. Olympic Spot Conceded Without Runoff. New York Times 2012, B9.

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	Systems
ISSN (online)	2079-8954
Scope