How to format your references using the Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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 D.C. Leonard, “Astronomy. A supernova riddle,” Science 315(5809), 193–194 (2007).
A journal article with 2 authors
1 A. Gann, and J. Witkowski, “The lost correspondence of Francis Crick,” Nature 467(7315), 519–524 (2010).
A journal article with 3 authors
1 X. Yu, L. Jin, and Z.H. Zhou, “3.88 A structure of cytoplasmic polyhedrosis virus by cryo-electron microscopy,” Nature 453(7193), 415–419 (2008).
A journal article with 4 or more authors
1 D.G. Capone, R. Popa, B. Flood, and K.H. Nealson, “Geochemistry. Follow the nitrogen,” Science 312(5774), 708–709 (2006).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1 R.B. Fisher, T.P. Breckon, K. Dawson-Howe, A. Fitzgibbon, C. Robertson, E. Trucco, and C.K.I. Williams, Dictionary of Computer Vision and Image Processing (John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2016).
An edited book
1 Z. Vlodaver, R.F. Wilson, and D.J. Garry, editors , Coronary Heart Disease: Clinical, Pathological, Imaging, and Molecular Profiles (Springer US, Boston, MA, 2012).
A chapter in an edited book
1 M. Bianchi, M. Draoli, and G. Gambosi, in Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective: Second International Conference, EGOVIS 2011, Toulouse, France, August 29 – September 2, 2011. Proceedings, edited by K.N. Andersen, E. Francesconi, Å. Grönlund, and T.M. van Engers (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011), pp. 41–55.

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 Physical and Chemical Reference Data.

Blog post
1 T. Hale, “The Global Trade Of Wild African Grey Parrots Has Been Banned,” 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, The Role of Field Operations in the Federal Communications Commission’s Regulatory Structure (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1978).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1 L. Douglas, Thermogravimetric and Raman Investigations on the Mechanism of Decomposition of Lead Compounds on Tungsten Surfaces, 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 B. Brantley, “A Pot of Gold Has to Be Good, Right?,” New York Times, C1 (2016).

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

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 titleJournal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data
AbbreviationJ. Phys. Chem. Ref. Data
ISSN (print)0047-2689
ISSN (online)1529-7845
ScopeGeneral Chemistry
Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
General Physics and Astronomy

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