How to format your references using the Soft Computing citation style

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

Goodman S (2004) Getting mobile in Europe. Nature 427:868–869

A journal article with 2 authors

Vogl U, Weitz M (2009) Laser cooling by collisional redistribution of radiation. Nature 461:70–73

A journal article with 3 authors

Li CW, Ciston J, Kanan MW (2014) Electroreduction of carbon monoxide to liquid fuel on oxide-derived nanocrystalline copper. Nature 508:504–507

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Mair A, Vaziri A, Weihs G, Zeilinger A (2001) Entanglement of the orbital angular momentum states of photons. Nature 412:313–316

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Kampen TU (2010) Low Molecular Weight Organic Semiconductors. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany

An edited book

Armstrong R, Durnescu I (eds) (2016) Parole and Beyond: International Experiences of Life After Prison. Palgrave Macmillan UK, London

A chapter in an edited book

Lin J-L, Yan H-S (2016) Modern Reconstruction Research. In: Yan H-S (ed) Decoding the Mechanisms of Antikythera Astronomical Device. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 63–84

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 Soft Computing.

Blog post

Hale T (2016) This Futuristic 'Straddling Bus” Can Drive Itself Over Cars. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/futuristic-straddling-bus-fights-traffic-jams-and-air-pollution/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

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 (1992) Information on EEO Discrimination Complaints. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bai S (2008) Identification and Characterization of Senescence-Associated Proteins in Petunia Corollas. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University

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

Crow K (2003) In the East Village, an Unusual Bid to Fix Up a Firehouse . . . New York Times 146

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Goodman 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Goodman 2004; Vogl and Weitz 2009).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Vogl and Weitz 2009)
Three or more authors: (Mair et al. 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Soft Computing
Abbreviation	Soft Comput.
ISSN (print)	1432-7643
ISSN (online)	1433-7479
Scope	Software Geometry and Topology Theoretical Computer Science