How to format your references using the Optics and Lasers in Engineering citation style

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

Smaglik P. Back to life. Nature 2004;429:483.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

Hazen RM, Roedder E. Biogeology. How old are bacteria from the Permian age? Nature 2001;411:155–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

Harrington J, Palethorpe S, Watson CI. Does the Queen speak the Queen’s English? Nature 2000;408:927–8.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

[1]

Wynn JG, Alemseged Z, Bobe R, Geraads D, Reed D, Roman DC. Geological and palaeontological context of a Pliocene juvenile hominin at Dikika, Ethiopia. Nature 2006;443:332–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

Stamp M. Information Security. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

[1]

Havelock D, Kuwano S, Vorländer M, editors. Handbook of Signal Processing in Acoustics. New York, NY: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

Yang Z, Chen J. Housing Affordability in Urban China: National Study. In: Chen J, editor. Housing Affordability and Housing Policy in Urban China, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2014, p. 59–72.

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 Optics and Lasers in Engineering.

Blog post

[1]

Andrew E. Scientists Successfully Chop Out Mitochondrial DNA Mutations In Mouse Embryos. IFLScience 2015.

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. Aviation Safety: Emergency Revocation Orders of Air Carrier Certificates. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

Warfield BS. Speaking of the Self: Theorizing the Dialogical Dimensions of Ethical Agency. Doctoral dissertation. University of South Florida, 2017.

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]

Cooper M, Walsh MW. Unions Fight Scranton Mayor After He Cuts Pay to Minimum Wage. New York Times 2012:A14.

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	Optics and Lasers in Engineering
Abbreviation	Opt. Lasers Eng.
ISSN (print)	0143-8166
Scope	Electrical and Electronic Engineering Mechanical Engineering Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics