How to format your references using the Theory of Computing Systems citation style

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

Stearns, T.: Cell biology. Centrioles, in absentia. Science. 348, 1091–1092 (2015)

A journal article with 2 authors

Frohlich, M.W., Chase, M.W.: After a dozen years of progress the origin of angiosperms is still a great mystery. Nature. 450, 1184–1189 (2007)

A journal article with 3 authors

Lavine, M.S., Voss, D., Coontz, R.: A robotic future. Introduction to special issue. Science. 318, 1083 (2007)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

McComb, K., Moss, C., Durant, S.M., Baker, L., Sayialel, S.: Matriarchs as repositories of social knowledge in African elephants. Science. 292, 491–494 (2001)

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Tavakoli, J.M.: Structured Finance and Collateralized Debt Obligations. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2008)

An edited book

Ausiello, G., Karhumäki, J., Mauri, G., Ong, L. eds: Fifth Ifip International Conference On Theoretical Computer Science – Tcs 2008. Springer US, Boston, MA (2008)

A chapter in an edited book

Boyer, L., Cassagnes, L., Vernhet, H., Garcier, J.-M., Chabrot, P.: Massive Hemoptysis: Radiological Management. In: Chabrot, P. and Boyer, L. (eds.) Embolization. pp. 63–77. Springer, London (2014)

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 Theory of Computing Systems.

Blog post

Andrew, E.: 20 Awesome Science Experiments You Can Do Right Now At Home, https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/unfinished-20-fun-science-experiments-you-can-do-home/

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: Digests of Unpublished Decisions of the Comptroller General of the United States, Vol. II, No. 12. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1986)

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Swenson, M.D.: Second generation Latinos and the perceived barriers to college enrollment, (2012)

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

MacFARQUHAR, N.: Parties Backing Putin Make a Strong Showing in Elections, (2016)

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	Theory of Computing Systems
Abbreviation	Theory Comput. Syst.
ISSN (print)	1432-4350
ISSN (online)	1433-0490
Scope	Computational Theory and Mathematics Theoretical Computer Science