How to format your references using the Composites Part A citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Composites Part A. 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 reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles 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]

Felten DL. IRBs: going too far or not far enough? Science 2006;313:1388–9; author reply 1388-9.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Caputo JM, Collins SH. Prosthetic ankle push-off work reduces metabolic rate but not collision work in non-amputee walking. Sci Rep 2014;4:7213.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Gerber LR, Hyrenbach KD, Zacharias MA. Ecology. Do the largest protected areas conserve whales or whalers? Science 2005;307:525–6.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Xu Y, Qiao J, Hou X, Pan S. Plutonium in soils from northeast China and its potential application for evaluation of soil erosion. Sci Rep 2013;3:3506.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Xiong K. Resource Optimization and Security for Cloud Services. Hoboken, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2014.

An edited book

[1]

Perelman Y. The NeuroProcessor: An Integrated Interface to Biological Neural Networks. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Burg MM. Mental Stress Ischemia: Characteristics, Pathophysiology, Prognosis and Treatment. In: Parati G, Compare A, editors. Clinical Psychology and Heart Disease, Milano: Springer; 2006, p. 71–82.

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 Composites Part A.

Blog post

[1]

Taub B. Virus Uses Stolen DNA From Black Widow Spider Venom. IFLScience 2016. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/virus-uses-stolen-dna-from-black-widow-spider-venom/ (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. Transition Series: NASA Issues. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1988.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Racho MO. Attributes of Asian American senior leaders who have retained their cultural identity and been successful in American corporations. Doctoral dissertation. Pepperdine University, 2012.

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]

Feeney K. Homegrown: Sweet Peaches. New York Times 2008:NJ8.

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	Composites Part A
Abbreviation	Compos. Part A Appl. Sci. Manuf.
ISSN (print)	1359-835X
Scope	Mechanics of Materials Ceramics and Composites