How to format your references using the Nano Letters citation style

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

Kling, J. The Flaw Is Human. Nature 2000, 406 (6799), 941.

A journal article with 2 authors

(1)

Gaillardet, J.; Galy, A. Atmospheric Science. Himalaya--Carbon Sink or Source? Science 2008, 320 (5884), 1727–1728.

A journal article with 3 authors

(1)

Chen, D.-B.; Xiao, R.; Zeng, A. Predicting the Evolution of Spreading on Complex Networks. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 6108.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

(1)

Müller, R. D.; Sdrolias, M.; Gaina, C.; Steinberger, B.; Heine, C. Long-Term Sea-Level Fluctuations Driven by Ocean Basin Dynamics. Science 2008, 319 (5868), 1357–1362.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

(1)

Barnes, P.; Davies, M. Sub-Contracting under the JCT 2005 Forms; Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford, UK, 2009.

An edited book

(1)

Handbook of the Solar-Terrestrial Environment; Kamide, Y., Chian, A., Eds.; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2007.

A chapter in an edited book

(1)

Berezovsky, J.; Lau, W. H.; Ghosh, S.; Stephens, J.; Stern, N. P.; Awschalom, D. D. Spin Coherence in Semiconductors. In Manipulating Quantum Coherence in Solid State Systems; Flatté, M. E., Ţifrea, I., Eds.; NATO Science Series II: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry; Springer Netherlands: Dordrecht, 2007; pp 130–170.

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 Nano Letters.

Blog post

(1)

Luntz, S. Ancient Land Predator Hunted Sharks. IFLScience.

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. U.S. Aerospace Industry: Progress in Implementing Aerospace Commission Recommendations, and Remaining Challenges; GAO-06-920; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 2006.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

(1)

Norris, C. What Is Lost Along the Way. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, 2014.

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)

Mishan, L. The Taste of Darkness. New York Times. September 21, 2017, p M2166.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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	Nano Letters
Abbreviation	Nano Lett.
ISSN (print)	1530-6984
ISSN (online)	1530-6992
Scope	Bioengineering General Chemistry Mechanical Engineering General Materials Science Condensed Matter Physics