How to format your references using the TOP citation style

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

Glikson A (2006) Comment on “Zircon thermometer reveals minimum melting conditions on earliest Earth” I. Science 311:779; author reply 779

A journal article with 2 authors

Fienberg SE, Prewitt K (2010) Save your census. Nature 466:1043

A journal article with 3 authors

Mang PK, Larochelle S, Greven M (2003) Condensed-matter physics: spurious magnetism in high-T(c) superconductor. Nature 426:139–40; discussion 140

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Treviño M, Oviedo T, Jendritza P, et al (2013) Controlled variations in stimulus similarity during learning determine visual discrimination capacity in freely moving mice. Sci Rep 3:1048

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Morana J (2013) Sustainable Supply Chain Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ USA

An edited book

Qi J, Evered KT (eds) (2008) Environmental Problems of Central Asia and their Economic, Social and Security Impacts. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

A chapter in an edited book

Weinberg V, Brehm M, Christadler I (2010) OMI4papps: Optimisation, Modelling and Implementation for Highly Parallel Applications. In: Wagner S, Steinmetz M, Bode A, Müller MM (eds) High Performance Computing in Science and Engineering, Garching/Munich 2009: Transactions of the Fourth Joint HLRB and KONWIHR Review and Results Workshop, Dec. 8-9, 2009, Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, Garching/Munich, Germany. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 51–62

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 TOP.

Blog post

Hamilton K (2016) Scientists Levitate Large Sphere Using Ultrasound. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/physics/scientists-levitate-large-sphere-using-ultrasound/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1995) Aviation Security: FAA Can Help Ensure That Airports’ Access Control Systems Are Cost-Effective. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Phongprasert AV (2010) MSW students’ perceived knowledge and perceptions of effectiveness of the child welfare system. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach

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

Burghardt LF (2005) On the Curriculum, A Palette of Choices. New York Times 14LI20

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Glikson 2006).
This sentence cites two references (Glikson 2006; Fienberg and Prewitt 2010).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Fienberg and Prewitt 2010)
Three or more authors: (Treviño et al. 2013)

About the journal

Full journal title	TOP
Abbreviation	TOP
ISSN (print)	1134-5764
ISSN (online)	1863-8279
Scope	Discrete Mathematics and Combinatorics Statistics and Probability