How to format your references using the Mechatronics citation style

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

Favero I. Optomechanics: Listening to quantum grains of sound. Nature 2015;520:441–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Jacob Y, Martienssen R. Molecular biology. All packed up and ready to go. Science 2012;336:1391–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Berg E, Metlitski MA, Sachdev S. Sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo of the onset of antiferromagnetism in metals. Science 2012;338:1606–9.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Wang X, Jiao L, Sheng K, Li C, Dai L, Shi G. Solution-processable graphene nanomeshes with controlled pore structures. Sci Rep 2013;3:1996.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Lemma A. Introduction to the Practice of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2008.

An edited book

[1]

Hanson WS, Oltean IA, editors. Archaeology from Historical Aerial and Satellite Archives. New York, NY: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Lyytinen K. Section 1: Fundamental Concepts of Design. In: Lyytinen K, Loucopoulos P, Mylopoulos J, Robinson B, editors. Design Requirements Engineering: A Ten-Year Perspective: Design Requirements Workshop, Cleveland, OH, USA, June 3-6, 2007, Revised and Invited Papers, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009, p. 88–90.

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 Mechatronics.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew D. What Did Neanderthals Sound Like? IFLScience 2015. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/could-neanderthals-have-high-pitched-voices/ (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. Department of Homeland Security: Oversight and Coordination of Research and Development Should Be Strengthened. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2012.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Sanchez Y. Effectiveness of parent-child interaction therapy for Latino families: A secondary analysis of existing data. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach, 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]

Schmidt MS. Car Chase, White House To Capitol, Has Fatal End. New York Times 2013:A12.

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	Mechatronics
Abbreviation	Mechatronics (Oxf.)
ISSN (print)	0957-4158
Scope	Computer Science Applications Electrical and Electronic Engineering Mechanical Engineering