How to format your references using the Science Advances citation style

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

H. F. Schaefer, Paul von Ragué Schleyer (1930-2014). Nature 517, 22 (2015).

A journal article with 2 authors

S. A. Beatson, M. J. Walker, Microbiology. Tracking antibiotic resistance. Science 345, 1454–1455 (2014).

A journal article with 3 authors

S. H. Arce, P.-H. Wu, Y. Tseng, Fast and accurate automated cell boundary determination for fluorescence microscopy. Sci. Rep. 3, 2266 (2013).

A journal article with 4 or more authors

G. Cooper, N. Kimmich, W. Belisle, J. Sarinana, K. Brabham, L. Garrel, Carbonaceous meteorites as a source of sugar-related organic compounds for the early Earth. Nature 414, 879–883 (2001).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

H. Yang, E. K. Lee, Healthcare Analytics: From Data to Knowledge to Healthcare Improvement (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2016).

An edited book

F. Casas, V. Martínez, Eds., Advances in Differential Equations and Applications (Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2014)vol. 4 of SEMA SIMAI Springer Series.

A chapter in an edited book

R. H. Alvarez, “HER2-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer: Second-Line Treatment” in Handbook of HER2-Targeted Agents in Breast Cancer, J. Cortés, L. D. Mattos-Arruda, M. Falzon, A. Fasolo, M. Gandy, L. Gianni, N. Harbeck, M. Piccart, S. Zambelli, D. Zardavas, Eds. (Springer Healthcare Ltd., Tarporley, 2013), pp. 61–74.

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 Science Advances.

Blog post

E. Andrew, Six Amazing Sights That Look Even Better From The International Space Station, 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

Government Accountability Office, “Transportation Worker Identification Credential: Card Reader Pilot Results Are Unreliable; Security Benefits Should Be Reassessed” (GAO-13-610T, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2013).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

K. A. Fonteix, “Separate, But Not Equal: A Qualitative Case Study Comparing Traditional And Homebound Instruction Using Technology,” University of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ (2013).

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

Ford Fessenden; Kate, L. S. C. Reporting, Long Island Aid Comes at Westchester’s Expense, New York Times (2007)p. 14WC5.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text

About the journal

Full journal title	Science Advances
Abbreviation	Sci. Adv.
ISSN (online)	2375-2548
Scope