How to format your references using the Physical Review A citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Physical Review A. 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

[1]

U. D. Schwarz, Tribology. Tracking antiwear film formation, Science 348, 40 (2015).

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

C. R. Reczek and N. S. Chandel, CANCER. Revisiting vitamin C and cancer, Science 350, 1317 (2015).

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

N. S. Ginsberg, S. R. Garner, and L. V. Hau, Coherent control of optical information with matter wave dynamics, Nature 445, 623 (2007).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

S. Stefer et al., Structural basis for tail-anchored membrane protein biogenesis by the Get3-receptor complex, Science 333, 758 (2011).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

S. N. Koch, S. M. F. Torres, and D. C. Plumb, Canine and Feline Dermatology Drug Handbook (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd,., West Sussex, UK, 2012).

An edited book

[1]

N. Larco, Site Design for Multifamily Housing: Creating Livable, Connected Neighborhoods (Island Press/Center for Resource Economics, Washington, DC, 2014).

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

S. Fujita, K. Ito, and S. Godoy, The Energy Gap Equations, in Quantum Theory of Conducting Matter: Superconductivity, edited by K. Ito and S. Godoy (Springer, New York, NY, 2009), pp. 45–60.

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 Physical Review A.

Blog post

[1]

T. Hale, Watch Two Guys Fly Their JETPACKS Alongside A Plane, https://www.iflscience.com/technology/two-daredevils-fly-jet-packs-alongside-huge-plan/.

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, Media Ownership: FCC Should Review the Effects of Broadcaster Agreements on Its Media Policy Goals, No. GAO-14-558, U.S. Government Printing Office, 2014.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

J. D. Bryant, The Investigation of Self-Determination in Students Participating in Higher Education with an Invisible Disability, Doctoral dissertation, Lindenwood University, 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]

M. W. Walsh, Volcker Sees Hidden Peril in State Budget Practices, New York Times B5 (2015).

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	Physical Review A
ISSN (print)	2469-9926
ISSN (online)	2469-9934
Scope