How to format your references using the Topics in Current Chemistry citation style

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

Bohannon J (2009) The Gonzo Scientist. Gourmet food, served by dogs. Science 323:1006

A journal article with 2 authors

Coombs R, Georghiou L (2002) Research and development. A new “industrial ecology.” Science 296:471

A journal article with 3 authors

Rhew RC, Miller BR, Weiss RF (2000) Natural methyl bromide and methyl chloride emissions from coastal salt marshes. Nature 403:292–295

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Hirotsune S, Yoshida N, Chen A, et al (2003) An expressed pseudogene regulates the messenger-RNA stability of its homologous coding gene. Nature 423:91–96

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Evans GM, Furlong JC (2010) Environmental Biotechnology. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Sollund R, Stefes CH, Germani AR (2016) Fighting Environmental Crime in Europe and Beyond: The Role of the EU and Its Member States. Palgrave Macmillan UK, London

A chapter in an edited book

Jardetzky O, Finucane MD (2007) Tandem Interactions in the trp Repressor System may Regulate Binding to Operator DNA. In: Puglisi J (ed) Structure and Biophysics – New Technologies for Current Challenges in Biology and Beyond. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 49–64

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 Topics in Current Chemistry.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J (2017) NASA Scientists Find “Lost” Spacecraft Orbiting The Moon. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-scientists-find-lost-spacecraft-orbiting-the-moon/. 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 (1996) Contracts Under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. 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

Lewis DS (2010) Global Educational Ecosystem: Case study of a partnership with K–12 schools, community organizations, and business. Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University

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

Greenhouse L (2008) Justices Indicate They May Uphold Voter ID Rules. New York Times A1

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	Topics in Current Chemistry
Abbreviation	Top. Curr. Chem. (J)
ISSN (print)	2365-0869
ISSN (online)	2364-8961
Scope