Citation Format

Beginning with Vol. 12, Issue 1 (January 2005), Physics of Plasmas switched from a citation format based on page numbers to one based on six-digit citation identifiers (CIDs). At the same time, Physics of Plasmas began publishing issues online in an article-at-a-time publication mode. The CID chosen for Physics of Plasmas is similar to that used by Physical Review. Use of CIDs in place of traditional page numbers allows an issue to build online one article at a time while retaining the ability to segment tables of contents by article type or subject area; this accelerates online publication of articles, which are published online individually as soon as author proof corrections are incorporated. Utilization of CIDs also allows articles to be fully citable as soon as they are published online, using the same identifier for both online and print versions.

The structure of the six-digit citation identifier is defined as follows:

• first two digits: indicate the issue number
• middle two digits: indicate the article type and/or subject area
• last two digits: assigned according to publication order, within that issue and

Definitions of this journal's article type and subject area code numbers (the middle two digits of the CID) can be accessed through the links below. Note that the eight subject areas are used to categorize regular articles and also invited papers from the annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, which appear annually in the May issue:

Example:

An example of the correct citation format for an article in Physics of Plasmas is:

A. Smith and B. Jones, Phys. Plasmas 12, 023307 (2005).

In this fictitious example, the article by Smith and Jones was published in Physics of Plasmas in Issue 2 of Volume 12, as the seventh article published in section 33, which, for Phys. Plasmas Vol. 12, is "Radiation: Emission, Absorption, Transport."

In the full-text PDF file available online and in the printed article, the CID appears on each printed page. Appended at the end of the CID is a hyphen followed by a consecutive page number. For the sample article above, the printed pages would carry this page numbering: 023307-1, 023307-2, 023307-3, etc. The hyphen and additional digits should not be used when citing or searching for an article.