How to format your references using the Theory of Computing Systems citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Theory of Computing 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

Larson, G.: Anthropology. How wheat came to Britain. Science. 347, 945–946 (2015)

A journal article with 2 authors

Bednarek, P., Osbourn, A.: Plant-microbe interactions: chemical diversity in plant defense. Science. 324, 746–748 (2009)

A journal article with 3 authors

Chen, L.-Y., Redon, S., Lingner, J.: The human CST complex is a terminator of telomerase activity. Nature. 488, 540–544 (2012)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Cockburn, J.J.B., Abrescia, N.G.A., Grimes, J.M., Sutton, G.C., Diprose, J.M., Benevides, J.M., Thomas, G.J., Jr, Bamford, J.K.H., Bamford, D.H., Stuart, D.I.: Membrane structure and interactions with protein and DNA in bacteriophage PRD1. Nature. 432, 122–125 (2004)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Faticoni, T.G.: The Mathematics of Infinity. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2006)

An edited book

Mori, K., Sakuma, I., Sato, Y., Barillot, C., Navab, N. eds: Medical Image Computing and Computer-Assisted Intervention – MICCAI 2013: 16th International Conference, Nagoya, Japan, September 22-26, 2013, Proceedings, Part III. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2013)

A chapter in an edited book

Hailu, R., Ito, T.: Optimal Preference Clustering Technique for Scalable Multiagent Negotiation(Short Paper). In: Ali, M., Pan, J.-S., Chen, S.-M., and Horng, M.-F. (eds.) Modern Advances in Applied Intelligence: 27th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems, IEA/AIE 2014, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, June 3-6, 2014, Proceedings, Part I. pp. 43–48. Springer International Publishing, Cham (2014)

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 Theory of Computing Systems.

Blog post

Carpineti, A.: US Approves World’s Most Sensitive Dark Matter Detector To Begin Hunt In 2020, https://www.iflscience.com/physics/us-approves-worlds-most-sensitive-dark-matter-detector-to-begin-hunt-in-2020/

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: Briefing on Air Force’s Response on Fee-For-Service Aerial Refueling. 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

Yi, Z.: Dynamics of bio-membranes investigated by neutron spin echo: Effects of phospholipid conformations and presence of lidocaine, (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

Kelly, S.: CHILDREN’S BOOKS, (1993)

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	Theory of Computing Systems
Abbreviation	Theory Comput. Syst.
ISSN (print)	1432-4350
ISSN (online)	1433-0490
Scope	Computational Theory and Mathematics Theoretical Computer Science