Formatting APS Journal Articles :: References
It is easiest to remove all bold and italic fonts from the Reference list before you format it and then make any necessary changes as you read through the list later. The ABRA «ref» function formats journal names automatically as italic, and at proof stage, the author line will be in bold.
Only published works or those accepted for publication ("In press") can be cited in the Reference list. In the text, unpublished citations are "unpublished observations."
References must be in alphabetical order using only the first word. It doesn't matter if there are no other authors or if subsequent authors are not in the correct order. Just make sure that if you go down the Reference list that everything is alphabetical.
References must be in numeric order. If the Reference list is not numbered, the ABRA «ref» function in the Toolkit will number it for you. However, you will have to verify that everything has been correctly numbered. To help with this, make certain that there are no paragraph breaks within the citation or extraneous information between references.
If the author has titled the list with the word "References," then delete it.
Select the entire reference list using the mouse or Shift + arrows. In ABRA, use the «ref» function. If the references are not numbered, then this function will number them for you; verify that the correct number of references is there and click on «ref» again. The «ref» function automatically formats the references. They will be in this form:
«ref2»
«rf»Number
«a»Authors.
«t»Title and other information.
«/ref»
The «ref» and «/ref» are placed automatically by the «ref» function of ABRA and indicate the beginning and end of the Reference list, respectively.
If there is a paragraph break in the middle of the numbered list, then the «ref» function will stop and you will have to delete the break and restart it.
Note that the «ref» function is a beautiful and wonderful time-saving function. However, you still have to make sure that the references have been correctly formatted. There are some things that the «ref» function has trouble with. This includes formatting author lines where an author has a multiple-part surname or hyphenated initials or if the author is (in fact) an organization, title lines where the title has more than one sentence or there are numbers with decimal points in the title, and book citations. Therefore, make sure to read over all the references after you have formatted them.
When you are done editing and formatting the references, run the RefCheck function of the Toolkit.
How you handle this depends on how much you have to change in the Reference list. If you have to change many numbers, then it is best to query the author and request a new electronic version of the manuscript with alphabetized references. Make sure that you specify that Word documents are preferred but other formats can be used as long as they are not in PDF format.
If only one or two references are out of order, then you don't have to get a new version. First, make a note (on paper) as to the misnumbered reference(s). Move the misordered reference to the correct location. If there are only a few numbers between them, then renumber the reference citations in the reference list; don't forget to change the text! It is best to include a query to the author stating that you have renumbered the references and that they should verify that references are correctly cited.
However, if many numbers would have to be shifted, then you can renumber the reference with the number above it followed by an alphabetical term. For example, Ref. 52 was moved to position 9. Renumbering the whole Reference list and the numbers in the text would be a pain and could introduce errors. Therefore, Ref. 52 will now be called Ref. 8a, and the only renumbering in the text is a simple change from 52 to 8a.
If you do use an alphanumeric citation, make sure to include a note to the author stating that references that have been placed in the correct order and that the Reference list should not be renumbered. Many authors really dislike the alphanumeric order, and at proof stage they return their corrected proofs with entirely reordered reference citations. APS considers this to be a costly series of corrections and a potential source for the introduction of errors, so we don't change the Reference list—so it helps to notify the author that we won't change it.