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In my paper I want to provide a reference for a sequence (in this case - A001970) from The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS).

However, I couldn't find an official bib entry for it (there is an unofficial OEIS2BibTeX). Even the respective FAQ/Wiki entry is a bit vague on the issue, providing only a suggestion:

A text reference might say:

The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, published electronically at http://oeis.org, 2010, Sequence A000108

or, if it is clear who "discovered" the sequence, something like

J. H. Conway, Sequence A007970 in The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (2010), published electronically at http://oeis.org.

Moreover, in most of papers I saw people add N. [J. A.] Sloane but drop the year, e.g.:

N. J. A. Sloane, The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, Sequence A000009.

So, is there a "good practice" for citing OEIS sequences?

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5 Answers 5

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The OEIS website http://oeis.org/wiki/Works_Citing_OEIS#Referencing_the_OEIS provides this info:

If you have found the OEIS useful in your own work, and wish to reference it, the usual citation is

OEIS Foundation Inc. (2019), The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, http://oeis.org.

To reference a particular sequence, the usual citation is

OEIS Foundation Inc. (2019), The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, http://oeis.org/A123456.
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For those who, like me, just want to copy and paste BibTeX for OEIS which approximates the general suggested reference style, here you go:

@misc{oeis,
    Author = {{OEIS Foundation Inc.}},
    Note = {Published electronically at \url{http://oeis.org}},
    Title = {The {O}n-{L}ine {E}ncyclopedia of {I}nteger {S}equences},
    Year = YYYY}

Of course, fill in YYYY with the current year.

Usage:

\cite[A008277]{oeis}
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  • $\begingroup$ What BiBTeX template do you use for citing a specific sequence? $\endgroup$
    – digital-Ink
    Commented Jan 16 at 17:59
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    $\begingroup$ I don't make individual citations for individual sequences. I use exactly what I posted--a single general citation to the OEIS, and individual cite commands that have the relevant sequence in their optional argument. It's like citing different theorems in a single reference text. $\endgroup$
    – Joshua P. Swanson
    Commented Jan 16 at 21:25
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To answer the question briefly: if you didn't find a guide or enough examples of a good practice online, then it is underpromoted (which includes the possibility that it doesn't exist).

People are still working on ways to cite online material, especially when referring to evolving resources like MathOverflow. If you can provide enough reference points in the bibliography to ensure that anyone who checks will find that to which you refer, then you have done your part of the job. MathOverflow assists in this by providing static unmodifiable data (question number, user number, timestamp of revision, etc.) as well as a link that gives you the data in a format suitable for bibliographic reference, but that is no guarantee that things won't change after some transition.

If OEIS had made some suggestion for reference which you still find wanting, I offer two: For the short term (while you are still active), prepare an electronic file which contains additional research notes for limited distribution. This can include your favorite online resource links or even gossip about which reference librarians to ask, but one thing it can include is a jpeg which is a screen snapshot of the OEIS page as it looked when you retrieved it. That way, for any future researcher who can't verify that part of your work and asks something like "What choo talking about Willis?", you can send them jpeg as supporting material. Hopefully they will still have a jpeg reader in that decade.

For the rest of posterity, also include links to other papers which use the sequence. Future historians can then infer the existence of a great and powerful database, something like a lost continent, which was gifted to mankind for the purpose of furthering intellectual acheivements, and which may inspire them to reconstruct it from whatever digital archives the insect rulers left to them.

Gerhard "Needs Some New Science Fiction" Paseman, 2013.05.20

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  • $\begingroup$ In theory, a (hidden) inline may be a good option (to make it clear, self-contained and as now we don't need to pay for paper and ink). Sure, for it is also a boon to archeologists discovering our civilization. I am aware of some dangers (even the previous (i.e. research.att.com/~njas/sequences) link to OEIS is not working), but otherwise numbering seems to be consistent and I want to provide only a reference, not use it as a detailed argument. $\endgroup$
    – Piotr Migdal
    Commented May 20, 2013 at 21:48
  • $\begingroup$ That said, the question is "what to do?" in a practical case, where I can write a line of a reference (as for other articles and books). $\endgroup$
    – Piotr Migdal
    Commented May 20, 2013 at 22:08
  • $\begingroup$ You could do worse than mimic references for MathOverflow. Doing a full-text search in arXiv yields many examples, one of which is 1207.1020 involving nilpotency of finite groups. That suggests something like "This sequence appears in OEIS" (or "in Sloane's database") " as A001970 [OEIS1970]...", followed by a bibitem that would be something nicer than "[OEIS1970] Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, Sequence A001970, oeis.org/search?A001970 , N. J. A Sloane ... 2013." Gerhard "Ask Me About System Design" Paseman, 2013.05.20 $\endgroup$
    – Gerhard Paseman
    Commented May 20, 2013 at 22:41
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My favourite (standard) format is

OEIS Foundation Inc. (2022). The Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, A001970. Accessed: June 30 2022, Available online at: http://oeis.org/A001970.

Otherwise, in specific cases, I have cited the sequence author's name (e.g., BIBITEX,

@misc{A001292:2, author = "R. Muller", title = "Sequence {A}001292 in the {O}n-Line {E}ncyclopedia of {I}nteger {S}equences (n.d.)", howpublished = "\url{https://oeis.org/A001292}", NOTE="Accessed on May 18 2022" }

)

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Just for a reference, I did cite it as:

N. J. A. Sloane. The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, http://oeis.org. Sequence A001970.

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  • $\begingroup$ Looks good to me. Gerhard "Insect Rulers Might Also Approve" Paseman, 2013.05.21 $\endgroup$
    – Gerhard Paseman
    Commented May 21, 2013 at 17:12

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