How to format your references using the Materials and Structures citation style

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

Smaglik P (2004) State of the unions. Nature 428:965

A journal article with 2 authors

Xiong W, Ferrell JE Jr (2003) A positive-feedback-based bistable “memory module” that governs a cell fate decision. Nature 426:460–465

A journal article with 3 authors

Gorb EV, Baum MJ, Gorb SN (2013) Development and regeneration ability of the wax coverage in Nepenthes alata pitchers: a cryo-SEM approach. Sci Rep 3:3078

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Wang M, Leung K-H, Lin S, et al (2014) A colorimetric chemosensor for Cu²⁺ ion detection based on an iridium(III) complex. Sci Rep 4:6794

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Chan NH (2010) Time Series: Applications to Finance with R and S-Plus®. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Sivalingam KM, Subramaniam S (2005) Emerging Optical Network Technologies: Architectures, Protocols and Performance. Springer US, Boston, MA

A chapter in an edited book

Tan W, Li L, Sun Y (2015) A Novel Performance Prediction Framework for Web Service Workflow Applications. In: Zu Q, Hu B, Gu N, Seng S (eds) Human Centered Computing: First International Conference, HCC 2014, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, November 27-29, 2014, Revised Selected Papers. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 55–68

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 Materials and Structures.

Blog post

Carpineti A (2016) Even Computers Find Super Mario Bros. Hard. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/even-computers-find-super-mario-bros-hard/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1997) Proprietary Schools: Analysis of Comments Received From an Association of Schools. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Minger L (2017) Examining Education Leadership Communication Practices around Basic and Advanced Skill Sets: A Multiple Case Study. Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University

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

MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI; Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is professor of psychology, education at the University of Chicago. His most recent book is “‘Optimal Experience’” (with Isabella Csikszentmihalyi) (1989) MORE WAYS THAN ONE TO BE GOOD. New York Times 76

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	Materials and Structures
Abbreviation	Mater. Struct.
ISSN (print)	1359-5997
ISSN (online)	1871-6873
Scope	Civil and Structural Engineering Mechanics of Materials Building and Construction General Materials Science