How to format your references using the Universe citation style

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

Goldberg, A.L. Protein Degradation and Protection against Misfolded or Damaged Proteins. Nature 2003, 426, 895–899.

A journal article with 2 authors

Tikku, A.A.; Direen, N.G. Comment on “Major Australian-Antarctic Plate Reorganization at Hawaiian-Emperor Bend Time.” Science 2008, 321, 490; author reply 490.

A journal article with 3 authors

Royle, N.J.; Russell, A.F.; Wilson, A.J. The Evolution of Flexible Parenting. Science 2014, 345, 776–781.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Hsu, Y.-J.; Simons, M.; Avouac, J.-P.; Galetzka, J.; Sieh, K.; Chlieh, M.; Natawidjaja, D.; Prawirodirdjo, L.; Bock, Y. Frictional Afterslip Following the 2005 Nias-Simeulue Earthquake, Sumatra. Science 2006, 312, 1921–1926.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Baker, K.R. Optimization Modeling with Spreadsheets; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2011; ISBN 9780470949108.

An edited book

Information Technology and Open Source: Applications for Education, Innovation, and Sustainability: SEFM 2012 Satellite Events, InSuEdu, MoKMaSD, and OpenCert Thessaloniki, Greece, October 1–2, 2012 Revised Selected Papers; Cerone, A., Persico, D., Fernandes, S., Garcia-Perez, A., Katsaros, P., Shaikh, S.A., Stamelos, I., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2014; Vol. 7991; ISBN 9783642543371.

A chapter in an edited book

Hallani, S.E.; Ratbi, I. Familial Gliomas: Role of TP53 Gene. In Tumors of the Central Nervous System, Volume 2: Gliomas: Glioblastoma (Part 2); Hayat, M.A., Ed.; Springer Netherlands: Dordrecht, 2011; pp. 39–45 ISBN 9789400706170.

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 Universe.

Blog post

Andrew, E. Quantum Mechanics Just Got “Spookier” (accessed on 30 October 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 Education Needs to Further Examine Data Collection on English Language Learners in Charter Schools; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2013;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bornmann, J.W. Becoming Soldiers: Army Basic Training and the Negotiation of Identity. Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University: Washington, DC, 2009.

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

Crow, K. A Hint of Spring: Dispute Over a Little League Field. New York Times 2001, 148.

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	Universe
Abbreviation	Universe
ISSN (online)	2218-1997
Scope

Research and Writing Guides