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.D. Rowley, Genetics. A story of swapped ends, Science. 340 (2013) 1412–1413.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

G.S. Shekhawat, V.P. Dravid, Nanoscale imaging of buried structures via scanning near-field ultrasound holography, Science. 310 (2005) 89–92.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

S. Kryazhimskiy, J.A. Draghi, J.B. Plotkin, Evolution. In evolution, the sum is less than its parts, Science. 332 (2011) 1160–1161.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

P. Happel, K. Möller, N.K. Schwering, I.D. Dietzel, Migrating oligodendrocyte progenitor cells swell prior to soma dislocation, Sci. Rep. 3 (2013) 1806.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

F.J. Waller, Writing Chemistry Patents and Intellectual Property, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2011.

An edited book

[1]

S. Sánchez-Alonso, I.N. Athanasiadis, eds., Metadata and Semantic Research: 4th International Conference, MTSR 2010, Alcalá de Henares, Spain, October 20-22, 2010. Proceedings, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

E. Maleki, G.H. Farrahi, K. Sherafatnia, Application of Artificial Neural Network to Predict the Effects of Severe Shot Peening on Properties of Low Carbon Steel, in: A. Öchsner, H. Altenbach (Eds.), Machining, Joining and Modifications of Advanced Materials, Springer, Singapore, 2016: pp. 45–60.

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]

S. Luntz, Astronomers Find Evidence Of Two Undiscovered Planets In Our Solar System, IFLScience. (2014). https://www.iflscience.com/space/signs-planet-x-and-maybe-y/ (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, Air Traffic Control: Preliminary Observations on Commercialized Air Navigation Service Providers, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2005.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

M.S. Taylor, Too Close to the Knives: Children’s Rights, Parental Authority, and Best Interests in the Context of Elective Pediatric Surgeries, Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University, 2015.

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]

I. by S. Dominus, Hasan Minhaj Thinks Comedy Is for Weirdos, New York Times. (2017) MM66.

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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