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Physics

Citation Styles for Physics

The field of Physics does not have a consensus citation style.  When writing for a course assignment, consult your professor for guidance on selecting a style.

Physicists are typically required to adopt the citation style used by the journal publishing their research article.  However, in the absence of a required citation style, a good one to consider is the style used for journals published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

Given the equation-heavy nature of many physics publications and the difficulty of properly formatting these equations with applications like Microsoft Word, it is extremely likely that your physics writing will be done using LaTeX and your citations will be managed and formatted using one of the citation management packages in LaTeX (e.g. BibTeX).  An excellent template for preparing AIP journal manuscripts is provided by Overleaf.


In the absence of a required citation style, might consider using one of the widely used citation styles (i.e. Chicago, APA, MLA) described in detail on the Bates Library "Citing Sources" guide.