Science Reference Style

Science uses a numbering system for references and notes. This allows explanatory or more detailed notes to be included with the references. Journal names are abbreviated using common abbreviations to save space.

On this page, we offer some guidelines for preparing manuscript reference lists in Science style. For additional examples, see recent issues of Science.

• General Notes
• Creating the Reference List
• Style Examples

General Notes

• Place citation numbers for references and notes within parentheses, italicized: (18, 19) (18-20) (18, 20-22). Do not use superscript numbers. Citations are numbered sequentially, first in the text, then through the references and notes, and then through the figure and table captions. The last note contains the acknowledgments and is not cited.



• Each reference can be listed only once. Separate individual references from other references and from any text notes. (This is a change from our previous style to simplify referencing and facilitate online linking of references.) Each reference should have its own number and not include other text.



• Any reference to a personal communication should be given a number in the text and placed, in correct sequence, in the references and notes. It must be accompanied by a written letter of permission. Work cited as "in press" should not be used to support claims in the paper or the results or conclusions. Data supporting the results or conclusions should be included in the paper or Supporting Online Material or must be archived in an appropriate database at the time of publication and made available for reviewers. Do not include results or conclusions supported by data that are not shown or are in press.



• Notes should be used for information aimed at the specialist (e.g., procedures) or to provide definitions or further information to the general reader that are not essential to the data or arguments. Notes can cite other references (by number).



• Please do not place tables within notes.



• If you are including materials and methods in supporting online material, please cite this (wherever appropriate) as a single numbered note in the text, in the same fashion as other notes. For the note, use a form such as this: "Information on materials and methods is available on Science Online." (The correct Web address will be appended by Science staff.) For information on how to reference other supporting online material in the manuscript text, please see our specific guidelines on this material.



• Within supporting online material, do not refer to references in the main paper by number; create an independent numbered list (with corresponding citations) instead, starting with number 1. References that appeared in the main paper can appear again in this new list.

Creating the Reference List

For journal articles, list initials first for all authors, separated by a space: A. B. Opus, B. C. Hobbs. Do not use "and." Use et al. (italics) for more than five authors. Journal titles are in italics; volume numbers follow, in boldface. Do not place a comma before the volume number or before any parentheses. You may give the full inclusive pages of the article. Journal years are in parentheses: (1996). End each listing with a period. Do not use ibid. or op. cit. (these cannot be linked online).

For whole books, monographs, memos, or reports, the style for author or editor names is as above; for edited books, insert "Ed.," or "Eds.," before the title. Italicize the book title and use initial caps. After the title, provide (in parentheses) the publisher name, publisher location, edition number (if any), and year. If these are unavailable, or if the work is unpublished, please provide all information needed for a reader to locate the work; this may include a URL or a Web or FTP address. For unpublished proceedings or symposia, supply the title of meeting, location, inclusive dates, and sponsoring organization. There is no need to supply the total page count. If the book is part of a series, indicate this after the title (e.g., vol. 23 of Springer Series in Molecular Biology).

For chapters in edited books, the style is as above, except that "in" appears before the title, and the names of the editors appear after the title. After the information in parentheses, provide the complete page number range (or chapter number) of the cited material.

For research first published in Science Express, or physical sciences preprints available on the Internet, see the examples below. These are considered published work and don't require you to obtain permission from the authors to cite.

Acknowledgments, including funding information, should be gathered into a brief statement at the end of the references and notes and will be edited to conform to Science style.

Style Examples

1. N. Tang, Atmos. Environ. 14, 819-834 (1980). [one author]

2. J. C. Smith, M. Field, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 51, 930-935 (1964). [two or more authors]

3. M. Schmidt, Sci. Am. 251, 58 (November 1984). [journal paginated by issue]

1. M. Lister, Fundamentals of Operating Systems (Springer-Verlag, New York, ed. 3, 1984), pp. 7-11. [third edition]

2. J. B. Carroll, Ed., Language, Thought and Reality, Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1956).

3. R. Davis, J. King, in Machine Intelligence, E. Acock, D. Michie, Eds. (Wiley, New York, 1976), vol. 8, chap. 3. [use short form of publisher name, not "John Wiley & Sons"]

4. D. Curtis et al., in Clinical Neurology of Development, B. Walters, Ed. (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1983), pp. 60-73. [use "Univ."]

5. Principles and Procedures for Evaluating the Toxicity of Household Substances (National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, 1977). [organization as author and publisher]

1. G. B. Shaw, "Practical uses of litmus paper in Möbius strips" (Tech. Rep. CUCS-29-82, Columbia Univ., New York, 1982).

2. F. Press, "A report on the computational needs for physics" (National Science Foundation, Washington, DC, 1981). [unpublished or access by title]

3. "Assessment of the carcinogenicity and mutagenicity of chemicals," WHO Tech. Rep. Ser. No. 556 (1974). [no author]

4. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, The Environmental Protection Agency’s White Paper on Bt Plant-Pesticide Resistance Management (EPA Publication 739-S-98-001, 1998; www.epa.gov/pesticides/biopesticides/white_bt.pdf). [the easiest access to this source is by Internet]

1. M. Konishi, paper presented at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Anaheim, CA, 10 October 1984. [sponsoring organization should be mentioned if it is not part of the meeting name]

1. B. Smith, thesis, Georgetown University (1973).

2. G. Reuter, personal communication. [Must be accompanied with a letter of permission and must not be used to support a central claim, result, or conclusion.]

Science Express publications

See online instructions for citing articles in Science Express

Science Signaling/STKE and the SAGE KE Archive

For citations guidelines for Science Signaling (and for pre-2008 articles on the Signal Transduction Knowledge Environment), please see that site's online instructions. These instructions can also be used for citing articles from the Science of Aging Knowledge Environment archive.

1. A. Smette et al., Astrophys. J., in press (available at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0012193). [if now published, omit the URL and provide only a standard reference]

2. K. Abe et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., in press (available at http://arXiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0107061).

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