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

Nicholson, D.W.: From bench to clinic with apoptosis-based therapeutic agents. Nature. 407, 810–816 (2000)

A journal article with 2 authors

Barkman, T., Zhang, J.: Evidence for escape from adaptive conflict? Nature. 462, E1; discussion E2-3 (2009)

A journal article with 3 authors

Hasty, J., McMillen, D., Collins, J.J.: Engineered gene circuits. Nature. 420, 224–230 (2002)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Xu, Q., Kobayashi, S., Ye, X., Meng, X.: Comparison of hepatic resection and radiofrequency ablation for small hepatocellular carcinoma: a meta-analysis of 16,103 patients. Sci. Rep. 4, 7252 (2014)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Atkin, N., Biddiss, M., Tallett, F.: The Wiley-Blackwell Dictionary of Modern European History Since 1789. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK (2011)

An edited book

Chow, J.H. ed: Power System Coherency and Model Reduction. Springer, New York, NY (2013)

A chapter in an edited book

Kozlov, M.V., Zvereva, E.L.: Industrial barrens: extreme habitats created by non-ferrous metallurgy. In: Amils, R., Ellis-Evans, C., and Hinghofer-Szalkay, H. (eds.) Life in Extreme Environments. pp. 69–97. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht (2007)

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

Fang, J.: Just One Antibiotic Treatment Can Alter Your Gut Microbiome For A Year

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: Child Care and Early Childhood Education: More Information Sharing and Program Review by HHS Could Enhance Access for Families with Limited English Proficiency. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2006)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Todman, J.V.: Applicability of health care leadership competence and leadership behaviors for women’s achieving health care executive status, (2016)

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

Yablonsky, L.: Hotel Rooms Become Overnight Stars, (2007)

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