References

This page contains general rules for references and their citations. Specific rules for each type of reference, as well as examples of them, are at the bottom of the page, and can be accessed with the table of contents:

Abstract

Citations in the abstract are allowed, but the full details should be provided in the abstract. Use two following examples as guidance for presentation (include DOI if available):

• ‘… in the work of Filon (Filon 1928 Proc. R. Soc. Edinb. 49, 39–47 (doi:10.xxxx ...)).’

• ‘… as explained in Gakhov (Gakhov 1966 In Introduction to the theory of Fourier integrals (ed. E. C. Titchmarsh), pp. 30–56, 3rd edn).’

• References cited in the abstract must appear in the main text.

Text

• Two authors are always connected by an ampersand (The work of Smith & Jones [2] remains ...); three or more authors are abbreviated with et al. (The work of Smith et al. [2]). Also, change instances of ‘(e.g. see [2])’ to ‘(e.g. [2])’.

  • For references therein:

Correct: (Smith [2] and references therein).

Wrong: (Smith [2] and the references therein).

Unpublished work

Personal communications are not included in the list; the citation in the text (with year) is the only reference. Unpublished work is also not included in the list; the citation in the text (with year) is the only reference. The author must be queried for ALL names and initials and the year the work took place, if missing. If there are more than 10 contributors, change to et al.

(LM Smith 1989, personal communication).

(LM Smith 1989, unpublished data).

Other work not yet published falls into three categories only (and details are included in the list):

• • 'in preparation': the manuscript is currently being written and has not been submitted to a journal yet.

  • 'submitted': the manuscript has been submitted to a journal and is awaiting acceptance/rejection.

  • 'in press': the manuscript has been accepted for publication.

If alternative terms are used by the author, e.g. “forthcoming”, query the author whether the work is in preparation, submitted or in press. “Work in progress” and “preliminary results” – should be changed to “in preparation” and “unpublished data”, respectively.

Quotes

Quotation marks should be single quotes. When quoting a piece of work directly, the page number of the work from which the quote was taken must be given (e.g. He concluded that 'We must give up the task.' [2, p. 5].)

Reference list

• If there are ten or more authors, then only the first author need be included (e.g. 'Adams HD et al. 1989...').

• If a reference has been published online but not yet in a printed version of a journal (such as an issue citation), use ‘in press’ not the year expected.

• DOIs (digital object identifiers) should be inserted for all papers where possible (CrossRef queried), in addition to providing full citations. DOIs should hyperlink directly to the online paper. [Note: There is no full stop after the DOI. DOI numbers exist for all papers published in Royal Society journals.]. References that include URLs from the arXiv e-print archive, should treat the URL link in the same way as a DOI.

• Each author’s name comprises the surname followed by initials (no comma separating surnames and initials). Only use ‘Jr’ and ‘Sr’ (and ‘II’ or ‘III’) after the surname; note: in the text these terms should only be applied to prevent ambiguity. Titles such as ‘Lord’ or ‘Sir’ should be removed. Double Christian names are contracted (e.g. Jean-Paul to J-P). Set ‘van’ as, for example, ‘van Leeuwen, C.’ not ‘Leeuwen van, C.’

• When referring to chapters, use ‘ch.’ not ‘chap.’ or ‘Ch.’

Journal articles

Reference format: [Author Surname] [Author Initials]. [Year] [Article title]. [Journal Name] [Volume], [Page range]. ([doi])

Notes:

• The title of the article follows the year, is set in roman and lower case, and is ended with a full stop (N.B. astrophysics articles sometimes do not have article titles in the reference list, these do not require an author query). Note that capitals should be maintained in journal titles given in German.

• The journal title is abbreviated (according to CrossRef: http://www.crossref.org/titleList/).

• Note that a thin space is also used in page numbers with five- or higher-digit numbers, e.g. 11 789.

• Issue numbers should be removed, but supplement numbers retained, enclosed in parentheses and closed-up to the volume number. Some page ranges are given as ‘S13–S27’, where ‘S’ indicates ‘supplement’, or ‘e22–e34’ where ‘e’ indicates ‘electronic’.

• New series and special issues of journals. Type ‘(New Series)’ and ‘(Special Issue)’ after the journal title.

• Do not confuse Proc. R. Soc. A with Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. These are two separate publications, both with DOIs available pre 1900. If there is any doubt please query the RS. Over the years the names of Royal Society journals have changed. Details of the abbreviations and years when they changed can be found with the samples on the Journals page.

• Referring to an entire journal issue should be treated like a book.

• For RS journals published from 2013, article IDs replace page numbers, and should be included in their place:

Billen G, Garnier J. 2013 The nitrogen cascade at regional watershed and global scales. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 368, 20130123. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2013.0123)

• For journal articles in a foreign language:

Pravosudov L. 1985 [Search for and storage of food by Parus cinctus lapponicus and P. montanus borealis (Paridae)]. Zool. Zhurnal. 64, 1036–1043. [In Russian.]

Data

Links to data repositories in the Data Accessibility end section should have a full citation in the reference list. Some papers already include these data citations in the reference list – please do not remove these citations.

The data reference style should appear as:

1. Torres-Campos I, Abram PK, Guerra-Grenier E, Boivin G, Brodeur J. 2016 Data from: A scenario for the evolution of selective egg colouration: the roles of enemy-free space, camouflage, thermoregulation, and pigment limitation. Dryad Digital Repository. (http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5qt2k)

The Data Accessibility section should continue to appear as it does now, but with a citation included for the data reference.

Books

• The title of the book follows the year, is set in italics and lower case, and is ended with a full stop, except where there is a page, chapter, volume, or edition number. in this case, the tile of the book is followed by a comma and the volume/edition etc. (e.g. 'book title, 2nd ed.')

• For book titles in German, the original capitalization must NOT be changed.

• The place of publication and the publisher completes the entry (if two places of publication are given, only the first should be shown).

• Note that for “Singapore: World Scientific”, Singapore only appears once. In the cases of “New York, NY” and “Mexico City, Mexico” both instances of the city and state remain.

Book

Reference format: [Authors]. [Year] [Chapter title]. In [Book title], (eds [Editors]), pp. [Page range]. [City, State]: [Publisher].

Notes:

• The title of a contribution to a multi-author work is set in roman and lower case, and ended with a full stop. This is followed by ‘In’ and the title of the work in italics and lower case, followed by the editor in parentheses (the abbreviation ‘ed.’ or ‘eds’ precedes the editor(s) name(s)) and the page range.

Translated book

Reference format: [Author]. [Year of original publication] [Book title]. (Transl. by [Translator]). [City, State]: [Publisher].

Conference proceedings

Reference format: [Authors]. [Year] [Title]. In [Conference title]. [City, State]: [Publisher].

Notes:

• References to contributions to conference proceedings are dealt with in a similar way to books. Numbers should be in figures, not words. Common words (such as Proc., Int., Symp., Conf., Natl) must be abbreviated.

• Note that the conference title is in italics and retains the capitals, and includes the place and date if provided.

• A doi can also be included if provided.

Reports

Reference format: [Authors]. [Year] [Title]. Report no. [Report number]. [City, State]: [Department/Institution].

Notes:

• Reports can vary drastically in the amount of information that is available. Common sense will need to be applied to make the reference as clear and consistent as possible.

• Include web address if provided.

Patents

Reference format: [Originators]. [Year] [Patent title]. Patent no. [Patent number].

Notes:

• For a specified country patent, 'Patent no.' is preceeded by the country (e.g. 'US Patent no.', 'German Patent no.').

Theses

Saito T. 1990 An approach toward higher-dimensional hysteresis chaos generators. Memorandum no. UCB/ERL M94/42, University of California at Berkeley, CA.

Newspaper articles

• Article title is not italicised; the name of the newspaper is.

• Reference format: [Authors]. [Year] [Article title]. [Newspaper Name], [Date], p. [Page range].

• Date in format dd month yyyy.

Radford T. 1999 Penguins’ equation for love. The Guardian, 20 August 1999, p. 16.

Websites

• Page title is italicised

• Include date of access if possible.

• Reference format: [Author/Editor]. [Title]. [URL] [(accessed)].

European Space Agency. ESA: Missions, Earth Observation: ENVISAT. http://envisat.esa.int/ (accessed 3 July 2008).