How to format your references using the Machine Learning citation style

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

Hublin, J.-J. (2013). Palaeontology: Free digital scans of human fossils. Nature, 497(7448), 183.

A journal article with 2 authors

Swinnen, J., & Squicciarini, P. (2012). Global food supply. Mixed messages on prices and food security. Science (New York, N.Y.), 335(6067), 405–406.

A journal article with 3 authors

Jasny, B. R., Kelner, K. L., & Pennisi, E. (2008). Genetics of behavior. From genes to social behavior. Introduction. Science (New York, N.Y.), 322(5903), 891.

A journal article with 8 or more authors

Cruz-Migoni, A., Hautbergue, G. M., Artymiuk, P. J., Baker, P. J., Bokori-Brown, M., Chang, C.-T., et al. (2011). A Burkholderia pseudomallei toxin inhibits helicase activity of translation factor eIF4A. Science (New York, N.Y.), 334(6057), 821–824.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lu, K. (2014). Materials in Energy Conversion, Harvesting, and Storage. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Cebeci, T. (2005). Analysis of Low-Speed Unsteady Airfoil Flows. (M. Platzer, H. Chen, K.-C. Chang, & J. P. Shao, Eds.). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Powell, A. B., Borge, I. C., Fioriti, G. I., Kondratieva, M., Koublanova, E., & Sukthankar, N. (2009). Challenging Tasks and Mathematics Learning. In P. J. Taylor & E. J. Barbeau (Eds.), Challenging Mathematics In and Beyond the Classroom: The 16th ICMI Study (pp. 133–170). Boston, MA: Springer US.

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 Machine Learning.

Blog post

Davis, J. (2017, February 28). Sauropods’ Tooth-Like Backbones May Have Helped Them Grow Long Necks. IFLScience. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/sauropods-toothlike-backbones-may-have-helped-them-grow-long-necks/. Accessed 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. (2005). Aviation Security: Federal Action Needed to Strengthen Domestic Air Cargo Security (No. GAO-06-76). Washington, DC: 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

Bakirci, A. (2010). Proteomic analysis of hepatocyte proteins in response to in vivo iron overload (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Billard, M. (2010, September 16). Baubles And Bags To Customize. New York Times, p. E7.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Hublin 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Hublin 2013; Swinnen and Squicciarini 2012).

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

Two authors: (Swinnen and Squicciarini 2012)
Three or more authors: (Cruz-Migoni et al. 2011)

About the journal

Full journal title	Machine Learning
Abbreviation	Mach. Learn.
ISSN (print)	0885-6125
ISSN (online)	1573-0565
Scope	Artificial Intelligence Software