What does a Nature reference list entry look like?

A journal article formatted in Nature looks like this: 1. Rivera, M. & Chen, D. The mapping of meaning: A study of citation practice. Journal of Scholarly Communication 12, 145–162 (2021).

How can I generate a Nature citation?

Use the free generator on this page: paste a DOI, URL (e.g. a news article), or BibTeX, or search for a book by title or author. Select Nature as the citation style and click Generate to get a formatted reference you can copy into your paper or bibliography.

Nature Citation Generator

Create accurate Nature citations for books, articles, and websites in one click.

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Nature citation examples

The same three sources formatted in Nature — a numeric style: sources are numbered in the order they are first cited, and in-text citations use those numbers:

Journal article: 1. Rivera, M. & Chen, D. The mapping of meaning: A study of citation practice. Journal of Scholarly Communication 12, 145–162 (2021).
Book: 2. Okafor, A. The Craft of Research Writing. (University Press, Cambridge, 2019).
Website: 3. Larsen, S. How peer review works. Open Science Digest https://www.example.org/peer-review (2023).
In-text citation (for the journal article): 1

About Nature

Nature journal citation style uses numbered references. Used by Nature and some other scientific journals.

When to use Nature: When submitting to Nature or journals that follow Nature's format. Common in: International.

Subject areas: science and generic base.

How to use this Nature generator

Paste a DOI, a URL to a news article or webpage, or raw BibTeX into the box above. You can also search for a book by title or author and cite it by ISBN. Choose "Nature" in the style dropdown (it's pre-selected on this page), then click "Generate citation." Copy the result into your reference list or bibliography. You can edit the generated entry (e.g. fix a title or add a date) before copying.

Frequently asked questions about Nature

What is Nature?: Nature journal citation style uses numbered references. Used by Nature and some other scientific journals.
When should I use Nature?: When submitting to Nature or journals that follow Nature's format.
What does an in-text citation look like in Nature?: Nature is a numeric style: sources are numbered in the order they are first cited, and in-text citations use those numbers. Citing our sample journal article in the text looks like: 1
What does a Nature reference list entry look like?: A journal article formatted in Nature looks like this: 1. Rivera, M. & Chen, D. The mapping of meaning: A study of citation practice. Journal of Scholarly Communication 12, 145–162 (2021).
How can I generate a Nature citation?: Use the free generator on this page: paste a DOI, URL (e.g. a news article), or BibTeX, or search for a book by title or author. Select Nature as the citation style and click Generate to get a formatted reference you can copy into your paper or bibliography.

CitationEasy supports many citation styles from around the world. Our generator uses Citation Style Language (CSL) styles from the official CSL repository.