How to format your references using the IFAC Journal of Systems and Control citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for IFAC Journal of Systems and Control. 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

Garwin, R. (2007). How the mighty have fallen. Nature, 449(7162), 543.

A journal article with 2 authors

Monk, J., & Palsson, B. O. (2014). Genetics. Predicting microbial growth. Science (New York, N.Y.), 344(6191), 1448–1449.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tagliabue, G., Eghlidi, H., & Poulikakos, D. (2014). Rapid-response low infrared emission broadband ultrathin plasmonic light absorber. Scientific Reports, 4, 7181.

A journal article with 21 or more authors

Amo, A., Pigeon, S., Sanvitto, D., Sala, V. G., Hivet, R., Carusotto, I., Pisanello, F., Leménager, G., Houdré, R., Giacobino, E., Ciuti, C., & Bramati, A. (2011). Polariton superfluids reveal quantum hydrodynamic solitons. Science (New York, N.Y.), 332(6034), 1167–1170.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Grigg, N. S. (2010). Infrastructure Finance. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Ratchev, S. (Ed.). (2006). Precision Assembly Technologies for Mini and Micro Products: Proceedings of the IFIP TC5 WG5.5 Third International Precision Assembly Seminar (IPAS ’2006), 19–21 February 2006, Bad Hofgastein, Austria (Vol. 198). Springer US.

A chapter in an edited book

Akoumianakis, D., & Mavraki, D. (2016). Using Conversational Knowledge Management as a Lens for Virtual Collaboration in the Course of Small Group Activities. In G. A. Tsihrintzis, M. Virvou, & L. C. Jain (Eds.), Intelligent Computing Systems: Emerging Application Areas (pp. 115–131). Springer.

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 IFAC Journal of Systems and Control.

Blog post

Luntz, S. (2015, June 8). Corals Beat Heat By Swapping Algal Partners. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/coral-beat-heat-swapping-algal-partners/

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. (2011). Financial Literacy: The Federal Government’s Role in Empowering Americans to Make Sound Financial Choices (GAO-11-504T). U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Rodriguez, J. M. (2011). A recruitment campaign for Latino non-kin foster parents: A grant proposal [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

Kenigsberg, B. (2017, September 7). Boris Without Beatrice. New York Times, C7.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Garwin, 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Garwin, 2007; Monk & Palsson, 2014).

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

Two authors: (Monk & Palsson, 2014)
Three or more authors: (Amo et al., 2011)

About the journal

Full journal title	IFAC Journal of Systems and Control
ISSN (print)	2468-6018
Scope