| name | pnas-citation |
| description | Use to convert references to PNAS's numbered citation style — cited in order of appearance, a numbered reference list, full author lists, abbreviated journal titles. Provides formats for article/book/chapter/dataset/preprint and an author-date → PNAS conversion table. Late-stage style pass. |
Reference Style (pnas-citation)
When to trigger
- References are in author–date (APA/Harvard) or another journal's style and must become PNAS style.
- The reference list is not ordered by citation appearance.
- Author lists are truncated with "et al." in the bibliography.
- In-text citations are not numeric.
PNAS citation mechanics
- Numbered, in order of appearance in the text, as numbers in parentheses: (1), (2, 3), (4–6).
- A single numbered reference list, numbered consecutively in the order references first appear in the text.
- The reference list gives full author lists (PNAS does not truncate to "et al." in the bibliography for typical author counts — confirm any cap for very long lists).
- Journal titles abbreviated (standard ISO/CASSI abbreviations); include volume, page or article number, and year.
- Each reference includes the article title.
This is PNAS's own numbered format. It resembles Science in being numbered-by-appearance, but follow the PNAS reference template for punctuation, ordering of elements, and abbreviation conventions — do not assume Science's exact formatting.
Reference formats (shape — confirm details in current PNAS guidelines)
- Journal article:
1. A. B. Author, C. D. Author, E. F. Author, Article title. J. Abbrev. Volume, page–page (Year).
- Book:
2. A. B. Author, Book Title (Publisher, ed. X, Year).
- Book chapter:
3. A. B. Author, Chapter title in Book Title, C. D. Editor, Ed. (Publisher, Year), pp. xx–yy.
- Dataset:
4. A. B. Author, Dataset title. Repository. Accession/DOI. Deposited DD Month Year.
- Preprint:
5. A. B. Author, Title. Repository [Preprint] (Year). DOI/identifier (accessed DD Month Year).
Initials precede surnames; article titles in sentence case; journal abbreviated. Use a reference-manager PNAS style file to enforce this mechanically, then do a manual pass.
Common conversion fixes
| From | To (PNAS) |
|---|
| "(Smith et al., 2021)" | "(12)" |
| "Smith, J. (2021)." | "J. Smith, …" |
| Truncated "et al." in biblio | full author list |
| Alphabetical reference list | ordered by first appearance |
| In-text author–date everywhere | sequential numbers (1), (2), … in text |
Worked conversion (author-date → PNAS numbered)
Source (APA, in text and list):
"Recent work (Smith & Lee, 2021; Okafor et al., 2022) shows …"
Smith, J., & Lee, K. (2021). Title of the article. Journal Name, 12(3), 45–58.
PNAS:
"Recent work (1, 2) shows …" — where (1) is the first to appear in the text.
1. J. Smith, K. Lee, Title of the article. J. Name 12, 45–58 (2021).
Note the changes: in-text becomes sequential numbers in appearance order; initials lead surnames; the article title is kept; the journal is abbreviated and italic-by-convention; volume is given without the issue number; full author list (no "et al." in the bibliography).
Tooling
- Use Zotero/EndNote with the PNAS 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; renumber after any reordering of the text.
Output format
【Style detected】 author-date / other → PNAS numbered
【Numbering】 by appearance? single numbered list? yes/no
【Author lists】 full (not et al.) in biblio? yes/no
【Journal abbreviations】 applied? yes/no
【Element shapes】 article/book/chapter/dataset/preprint correct?
【Unresolved/duplicate refs】 [...]
【Next】 pnas-submission
Anti-patterns
- Do not leave author–date citations anywhere in a PNAS manuscript.
- Do not alphabetize the reference list — order is by appearance.
- Do not truncate author lists with "et al." in the bibliography.
- Do not assume Science's exact reference formatting — use the PNAS template.
