How to format your references using the Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. 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

Norenzayan A. Behavior. Explaining human behavioral diversity. Science. 2011;332(6033):1041-1042.

A journal article with 2 authors

Huang Y, Li D. Soil nitric oxide emissions from terrestrial ecosystems in China: a synthesis of modeling and measurements. Sci Rep. 2014;4:7406.

A journal article with 3 authors

Gao G, Guo X, Goff SP. Inhibition of retroviral RNA production by ZAP, a CCCH-type zinc finger protein. Science. 2002;297(5587):1703-1706.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Van Eck S, Goriely S, Jorissen A, Plez B. Discovery of three lead-rich stars. Nature. 2001;412(6849):793-795.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Heller D. Hairspray. Wiley-Blackwell; 2011.

An edited book

Pagano MC, ed. Recent Advances on Mycorrhizal Fungi. Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Fardoun HM, Alghazzawi DM, López SR, Penichet VMR, Gallud JA. Online Social Networks Impact in Secondary Education. In: Vittorini P, Gennari R, Marenzi I, Prieta F de la, Rodríguez JMC, eds. International Workshop on Evidence-Based Technology Enhanced Learning. Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing. Springer; 2012:37-45.

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 Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.

Blog post

Hale T. Pedals The Bipedal Bear Is Believed To Have Been Shot Dead. IFLScience. October 17, 2016.

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. FCC: Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 1998. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1998.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

De los Santos E. Increasing the Psychological Well-Being of Undocumented Latino Youth Students in California: A Grant Proposal. 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

Yablonsky L. “Caligula” Gives a Toga Party (But No One’s Really Invited). New York Times. February 26, 2006:234.

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	Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
Abbreviation	Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom.
ISSN (print)	0951-4198
ISSN (online)	1097-0231
Scope	Analytical Chemistry Organic Chemistry Spectroscopy