The iopart-num BibTeX style

The iopart-num BibTeX style is intended for use in preparing manuscripts for Institute of Physics Publishing journals, including Journal of Physics. It provides numeric citation with Harvard-like formatting, based upon the specification in “How to prepare and submit an article for publication in an IOP journal using LaTeX 2ε” by Graham Douglas (2005).

The iopart-num package is available on the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN) as /biblio/bibtex/contrib/iopart-num.

To use the iopart-num style, include the command \bibliographystyle{iopart-num} in the document preamble. The reference section is then inserted into the document with the command \bibliography{...}, where the names of the necessary BibTeX database files should be listed between the braces. Further general instructions on using BibTeX may be found in the BibTeX documentation.

The iopart-num style is compatible with, but does not require, the iopart document class. It is also compatible with, but does not require, the natbib package. For documents prepared using the iopart class but without natbib, the section header for the references must be manually inserted, with the command \section*{References}, and use of the citesort package is recommended for proper formatting of the references in the text. For documents prepared with natbib, the section header for the references appears automatically, and use of the citesort package is not necessary. The natbib package should be loaded with the options square and sort&compress to insure proper formatting of the references in the text, i.e., with \usepackage[square,sort&compress]{natbib}.

Under IOP style conventions, journal names should be set in italic type. However, for journals with multiple lettered sections, the IOP convention is that the journal section letter should appear in roman type after the main journal name, e.g., “J. Phys. A”. Most existing BibTeX styles do not make special provision for lettered sections. Therefore, typically, the section letter is either included as part of the journal name

  journal = "J. Phys. A",
  volume = "38",

or as part of the volume number

  journal = "J. Phys.",
  volume = "A38",

in the BibTeX database entry. The iopart-num style instead introduces a new optional field section which can be used to specify a journal section letter. This section letter is set in roman type. Moreover, if the section letter already appears in any of the usual locations in the database entry (at the end of the journal name, before the volume number, or after the volume number), iopart-num will recognize it and suppress its printing. Therefore, when you are creating the BibTeX database entry for an article in a lettered journal section, you can still include the section letter in the journal or volume fields, for use with other BibTeX styles, without adversely affecting the formatting for IOP journals. For example, the entry for ref. [caprio2005:coherent] can be generated with

  journal = "J. Phys. A",
  section = "A",
  volume = "38",

or

  journal = "J. Phys.",
  section = "A",
  volume = "A38",

or simply

  journal = "J. Phys.",
  section = "A",
  volume = "38",

in the BibTeX database entry. Note that section names longer than a single letter are also supported (e.g., “Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams”).

Journal issue numbers are not customarily included in references to journal articles under the IOP formatting conventions. Therefore, the iopart-num style ignores the number field for articles. However, in some periodicals (such as popular magazines or certain journal online supplements), pagination restarts from 1 with each issue. For such periodicals, the issue number is an essential part of the bibliographic information needed to identify an article. The iopart-num style therefore supports an additional field issue in the BibTeX database entry, which can be used to enforce printing of the issue number. If a value is specified for issue, this value is included included parenthetically after the volume number in the reference, as in ref. [zamfir2005:132te-beta-enam04].

The iopart-num style supports several additional data fields (collaboration, eid, eprint, numpages, and url) introduced in REVTeX 4.

The entries in the reference list below provide examples of the formatting of various types of references, of varying complexity, including journal articles, books (individual, multivolume, or in a series), articles in books, theses, and unpublished references. The BibTeX database entries used to generate these examples can be found in the file iopart-num.bib. Refs. [ex1, ex2, ex3, ex4, ex5, ex6, ex7, ex8] are based upon example entries from the IOP guidelines.