How to format your references using the Thin Solid Films citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Thin Solid Films. 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	Download the output style file
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

[1]

J.S. Kargel, Planetary science. Proof for water, hints of life?, Science. 306 (2004) 1689–1691.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

T.B. Kornberg, L. Gilboa, Developmental biology: Nanotubes in the niche, Nature. 523 (2015) 292–293.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J. Wang, R.C. Ewing, U. Becker, Average structure and local configuration of excess oxygen in UO(2+x), Sci. Rep. 4 (2014) 4216.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

H.H. Chang, M. Hemberg, M. Barahona, D.E. Ingber, S. Huang, Transcriptome-wide noise controls lineage choice in mammalian progenitor cells, Nature. 453 (2008) 544–547.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

D.R. Woods, Successful Trouble Shooting for Process Engineers, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, FRG, 2005.

An edited book

[1]

K. Fog, Storytelling: Branding in Practice, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

R.S. Stansbury, E.L. Akers, H.P. Harmon, A. Agah, Simulation and Testbeds of Autonomous Robots in Harsh Environments, in: D. Brugali (Ed.), Software Engineering for Experimental Robotics, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007: pp. 71–92.

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 Thin Solid Films.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, New Test Detects Fatal Brain Disease Earlier And More Accurately Than Previous Methods, IFLScience. (2014). https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/new-test-detects-fatal-brain-disease-earlier-and-more-accurately-previous/ (accessed October 30, 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Distance Education: Challenges for Minority Serving Institutions and Implications for Federal Education Policy, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

S. Hankins, A policy analysis of the Americans with Disability Act of 1990, Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, 2010.

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

[1]

B. Vlasic, Federal Judge Halts Legal Challenges in Detroit Bankruptcy Case, New York Times. (2013) A14.

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	Thin Solid Films
Abbreviation	Thin Solid Films
ISSN (print)	0040-6090
Scope	Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials Materials Chemistry Metals and Alloys Surfaces, Coatings and Films Surfaces and Interfaces

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