How to format your references using the Progress in Natural Science citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Progress in Natural Science. 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

Roberts JW. Biochemistry. RNA polymerase, a scrunching machine. Science. 2006 Nov 17;314(5802):1097–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Domb LG, Pagel M. Sexual swellings advertise female quality in wild baboons. Nature. 2001 Mar 8;410(6825):204–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

Pandey S, Goswami GK, Nanda KK. Nanocomposite based flexible ultrasensitive resistive gas sensor for chemical reactions studies. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2082.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Gao Y, Dai X, Kang SG, Jimenez-Cruz CA, Xin M, Meng Y, et al. Structural and electronic properties of uranium-encapsulated Au₁₄ cage. Sci Rep. 2014 Jul 29;4:5862.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

El-Reedy MA. Construction Management for Industrial Projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

Albano E, Parola M, editors. Studies on Hepatic Disorders. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. XXII, 516 p. 49 illus., 31 illus. in color. (Oxidative Stress in Applied Basic Research and Clinical Practice).

A chapter in an edited book

Licata AA, Williams SE. What Is FRAX®? In: Williams SE, editor. A DXA Primer for the Practicing Clinician: A Case-Based Manual for Understanding and Interpreting Bone Densitometry. New York, NY: Springer; 2014. p. 35–41.

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 Progress in Natural Science.

Blog post

Andrew E. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015. Elon Musk’s Brave New World: It Worked For Henry Ford; Why Not Tesla?

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. Chemical Assessments: EPA’s New Assessment Process Will Further Limit the Productivity and Credibility of Its Integrated Risk Information System. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2008 May. Report No.: GAO-08-810T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Kent L. Justification-Suppression of Gender and Race Bias in Hiring: The Impact of Accountability [Doctoral dissertation]. [Edwardsville, IL]: Southern Illinois University; 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

Weiser B, Protess B. New Chief for U.S. Crime Division. New York Times. 2016 Oct 18;B5.

In-text citations

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

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	Progress in Natural Science
ISSN (print)	1002-0071
Scope