Reference Style (sci-citation)

When to trigger

• References are in author–date (APA/Harvard) or Nature style and must become Science style.
• The reference list is not ordered by citation appearance.
• Author lists are truncated with "et al." in the bibliography.
• Notes and references are split when Science combines them.

Science citation mechanics

• Numbered, in order of appearance in the text, as italic numbers in parentheses: (1), (2, 3), (4–6).
• A single reference list numbered consecutively; in Science, main text and Supplementary Materials share one continuous numbering (the SM continues the count). Confirm against current guidelines, but design for one list.
• Notes and references are combined — explanatory notes get a number in the same list.
• The reference list gives full author lists (Science does not truncate to "et al." in the bibliography for typical author counts).
• Journal titles abbreviated (per standard abbreviations); include volume, page (or article number), year.

Reference formats (shape)

• Journal article: A. B. Author, C. D. Author, E. F. Author, Title of the article. *Journal Abbrev.* **Volume**, page (year).
• Book: A. B. Author, *Book Title* (Publisher, ed., year), pp. xx–yy.
• Chapter: A. B. Author, in *Book Title*, C. Editor, Ed. (Publisher, year), pp. xx–yy.
• Dataset/code: cite with repository, accession/DOI, and year (consistent with sci-data).
• Preprint: include the repository and DOI/identifier.

Initials precede surnames; titles are in sentence case; journal in italics; volume in bold. Use a reference manager style file for Science to enforce this mechanically.

Common conversion fixes

Tooling

• Use Zotero/EndNote with the Science CSL/style; do a final manual pass on abbreviations and author-list completeness (managers often truncate).
• Verify every in-text number resolves and the list has no gaps/duplicates after the SM merge.

Why the continuous-numbering rule bites at Science specifically

Most general journals keep main-text and supplement references separate. Science's heavy reliance on Supplementary Materials means the SM often carries the bulk of the citations, and the house convention threads them into one consecutively numbered list (the SM continues the count from the main text). A reference first cited in fig. S7's legend gets the next free number, not a parallel "S" series. This is the single most common style defect when a manuscript is ported from a Nature-style or author–date template, because those tools renumber the SM independently. Confirm the exact current convention against the author guidelines, but build the list as one stream.

Worked micro-example (illustrative)

A Report cites three sources in its first paragraph, then introduces a fourth source only in the Supplementary Methods:

• Main text: "...prior surveys disagreed (1, 2), and the standard model predicts otherwise (3)."
• SM Methods: "We adapted the assay of (4)."
• Combined reference list (one stream, by appearance):
  1. A. B. Chen, D. Okafor, Title of the first survey. *Science* **370**, 112 (2020).
  2. R. Mehta, S. Lindqvist, L. Park, Title of the second survey. *Nat. Commun.* **11**, 4471 (2020).
  3. J. Ito, Title of the model paper. *Phys. Rev. Lett.* **124**, 030601 (2020).
  4. K. Adeyemi, T. Roy, Title of the assay paper. *Cell* **180**, 55 (2020).

Note: initials precede surnames, titles are sentence case, journal abbreviated and italic, volume bold — and reference 4, though first invoked in the SM, takes the next integer, not "S1".

Conversion-failure patterns to catch

Calibration anchors (confirm against current author guidelines)

• Numbering is by appearance, not alphabetical; markers are italic numbers in parentheses, e.g., (1), (2, 3), (4–6).
• One continuous list spanning main text and Supplementary Materials; notes and references are combined.
• Full author lists in the bibliography; journal titles abbreviated; volume bold; year in parentheses.
• After the SM merge, verify every in-text number resolves and the list has no gaps or duplicates.

Output format

【Style detected】 author-date / Nature / other → Science
【Numbering】 by appearance? single continuous list incl SM? yes/no
【Author lists】 full (not et al.) in biblio? yes/no
【Journal abbreviations】 applied? yes/no
【Unresolved/duplicate refs】 [...]
【Next】 sci-cover-letter

Anti-patterns

• Do not leave author–date citations anywhere in a Science manuscript.
• Do not alphabetize the reference list — order is by appearance.
• Do not truncate author lists with "et al." in the bibliography.
• Do not keep separate main-text and SM reference numbering if guidelines call for one continuous list.