How to format your references using the Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy. 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	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles 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

[1]

N. McDowell, Joint European plan will tackle Africa’s killer diseases, Nature. 421 (2003) 5.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

B.B. Lowell, G.I. Shulman, Mitochondrial dysfunction and type 2 diabetes, Science. 307 (2005) 384–387.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J.P. Walsh, C. Cho, W.M. Cohen, Science and law. View from the bench: patents and material transfers, Science. 309 (2005) 2002–2003.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

W.J. Hurst, S.M. Tarka Jr, T.G. Powis, F. Valdez Jr, T.R. Hester, Cacao usage by the earliest Maya civilization, Nature. 418 (2002) 289–290.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

M. Utsuro, V.K. Ignatovich, Handbook of Neutron Optics, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2010.

An edited book

[1]

B. Völlm, N. Nedopil, eds., The Use of Coercive Measures in Forensic Psychiatric Care: Legal, Ethical and Practical Challenges, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

S. Markic, J. Broggy, P. Childs, How to Deal with Linguistic Issues in Chemistry Classes, in: I. Eilks, A. Hofstein (Eds.), Teaching Chemistry – A Studybook: A Practical Guide and Textbook for Student Teachers, Teacher Trainees and Teachers, SensePublishers, Rotterdam, 2013: pp. 127–152.

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 Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy.

Blog post

[1]

A. Carpineti, Astronomers Have Discovered A New Nearby Super-Earth, IFLScience. (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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, Aviation Security: Progress Since September 11, 2001, and the Challenges Ahead, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

M. Machula, Understanding and Predicting Teachers’ Knowledge of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University, 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

[1]

S.K. (nyt), World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Fighter Jet Scrambled To Intercept U.S. Navy Plane, New York Times. (2004) A6.

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	Journal of Molecular Spectroscopy
Abbreviation	J. Mol. Spectrosc.
ISSN (print)	0022-2852
Scope	Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Spectroscopy Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics