When writing a scientific paper, an author must make references to sources, from where the data or certain results are taken.

The reference indicates bibliographical remarks about the cited document necessary and sufficient for its identification and search.

All types of published documents on any kind of information carriers (including digital resources) can be the objects of the reference.

The list of used documents allows an author to confirm the authenticity and accuracy of the cited materials (tables, illustrations, facts and documents) and shows to what extent the author has studied the problem under investigation.

References to sources are made in the form of the reference list to the research paper and are placed after the main text of the paper. As a rule, every bibliographic record in the reference list gets its consecutive number, for example [1].

Bibliographic description of a document consists of fragments placed in a certain order and containing data about a specific feature of an article, patent, digital resource etc.

Along with information such as author(s), date of publication, title and page numbers, references may also include unique identifiers such as DOI depending on the type of work being referred to.

At present there are many style guides for academic papers developed and used in various fields of science which also contain recommendations for making references. Among the style guides used by authors and publishers, the following ones are worth mentioning: APA citation style, MLA citation style, Chicago Manual of Style, IEEE style and others.

Every publishing company uses widely known style guides or has its own rules and standards. When preparing a research paper, an author should take it into account and study the publisher requirements for manuscript submission.

When indicating the book’s publisher or the title of the journal in references, one may use common abbreviations. However it is recommended to use full forms to avoid possible confusion and misunderstanding.

Below you may see the reference style used in SciPress journals:

Periodicals

Basic Format:

[1] A.N. Author, Name of paper, Title of Periodical. vol. x, no. x (year) pp. xxx-xxx.

Examples:

[1]   J. van der Geer, J.A.J. Hanraads, R.A. Lupton, The art of writing a scientific article, J. Sci. Commun. 163 (2000) 51-59.

[2]   Z. Ciesielski, Properies of the orthonormal Franclin system, Studia math. 23 (1963) 141–157.

[3]   C. Kavitha, A. Ratnakar, K. Narendra, Study of Molecular Interactions in Ternary Liquid Mixtures, International Letters of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy. 63 (2016) 77-82.

Books

Basic Format:

[1] A.N. Author, Title of chapter in the book, in Title of His Published Book, xth ed. Abbrev. of Publisher, City of Publisher, Country if not USA, year, ch. x, sec. x, pp. xxx–xxx.

Examples:

[1]   W. Strunk Jr., E.B. White, The Elements of Style, third ed., Macmillan, New York, 1979.

[2] B.Y. Chen, Geometry of slant Submnaifolds, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, 1990.

[3] G.R. Mettam, L.B. Adams, How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: B.S. Jones, R.Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age, E-Publishing Inc., New York, 1999, pp. 281-304.

Conference Articles

Basic Format:

[1]   A.N. Author, Title of paper, in Unabbreviated Name of Conf., City of Conf., Country if not USA, year, pp. xxx-xxx.

Example:

[1] A. Jonby, On the Kolmogorov-type inequalities, in Ukrainian mathematical congress – 2009, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2009, 120-124.

Web references

Basic Format:

[1]   A.N. Author, Title [Type of medium]. Available: http://www.(URL)

Example:

[1] J. Jones, Networks [Online]. Available: http://www.atm.com

Patents

Basic Format:

[1] A.N. Author, Title of patent, U.S. Patent x xxx xxx, Abbrev. Month, day, year.

Examples:

[1]   P.G. Clem, M. Rodriguez, J.A. Voigt and C.S. Ashley, U.S. Patent 6 231 666, (2001).

[2]   J.P. Wilkinson, Nonlinear resonant circuit devices, U.S. Patent 3 624 125, July 16, (1990).

Theses (M.S.) and Dissertations (Ph.D.)

Basic Format:

[1] A.N. Author, Title of thesis, M.S. thesis, Abbrev. Dept., Abbrev. Univ., City of Univ., Country if not USA, year.

Example:

[1]   A.N. Williams, Narrow-band analyser, Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Elect. Eng., Harvard Univ., Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1993.

If there are several authors in one bibliographic record, then the name of all authors is written in case of three or less authors. For example, [three authors: A.N. Author, P.L. Storyteller and A. N. Writer.] If the bibliographic record has four or more authors, only the name of the first author and prefix “et al” after it should be written. For example, [five authors: A.N. Author et al.].