How to format your references using the Data citation style

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

Wyse, R. Astronomy. Galactic Encounters. Science 2003, 301, 1055–1057.

A journal article with 2 authors

Pertsinidis, A.; Ling, X.S. Diffusion of Point Defects in Two-Dimensional Colloidal Crystals. Nature 2001, 413, 147–150.

A journal article with 3 authors

Grenier, M.B.; McDonald, D.B.; Buskirk, S.W. Rapid Population Growth of a Critically Endangered Carnivore. Science 2007, 317, 779.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Shi, H.; Bencze, K.Z.; Stemmler, T.L.; Philpott, C.C. A Cytosolic Iron Chaperone That Delivers Iron to Ferritin. Science 2008, 320, 1207–1210.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Gutiérrez, Í.; Meléndez, J.; Hernández, E. Design and Characterization of Integrated Varactors for RF Applications; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2007; ISBN 9780470035924.

An edited book

The Behavior Of Structures Composed Of Composite Materials; Vinson, J.R., Sierakowski, R.L., Eds.; Solid Mechanics And Its Applications; Second Edition.; Springer Netherlands: Dordrecht, 2008; Vol. 105; ISBN 9781402009044.

A chapter in an edited book

Matsuoka, S. The TSUBAME Cluster Experience a Year Later, and onto Petascale TSUBAME 2.0. In Recent Advances in Parallel Virtual Machine and Message Passing Interface: 14th European PVM/MPI User’s Group Meeting, Paris, France, September 30 - October 3, 2007. Proceedings; Cappello, F., Herault, T., Dongarra, J., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007; pp. 8–9 ISBN 9783540754152.

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 Data.

Blog post

Hamilton, K. Thank Grandmothers For Romance Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/grandmother-hypothesis-links-longevity-and-coupling-grandmothers/ (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 Examination Into the Manner in Which the Office of Education Is Administering the Teacher Corps Program; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1971;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Pundir, B. Surface Pressure Fluctuations Due to an Impinging Underexpanded Supersonic Jet. Doctoral dissertation, Florida Atlantic University: Boca Raton, FL, 2011.

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

Kelly, C. Old Graveyards Suffering The Ravages of Vandalism. New York Times 2007, WE15.

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	Data
Abbreviation	Data (Basel)
ISSN (online)	2306-5729
Scope