How to format your references using the 3 Biotech citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for 3 Biotech. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Moore JE (2010) The birth of topological insulators. Nature 464:194–198

A journal article with 2 authors

Wollert T, Hurley JH (2010) Molecular mechanism of multivesicular body biogenesis by ESCRT complexes. Nature 464:864–869

A journal article with 3 authors

Yang G, Pan F, Gan W-B (2009) Stably maintained dendritic spines are associated with lifelong memories. Nature 462:920–924

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Connolly JAD, Schmidt MW, Solferino G, Bagdassarov N (2009) Permeability of asthenospheric mantle and melt extraction rates at mid-ocean ridges. Nature 462:209–212

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Bhaskar K, Varadan Retd. TK (2014) Plates. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Nicholson AW (ed) (2011) Ribonucleases. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Viscusi G, Batini C, Mecella M (2010) State Reconstruction. In: Batini C, Mecella M (eds) Information Systems for eGovernment: A Quality-of-Service Perspective. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 75–98

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for 3 Biotech.

Blog post

Andrew D (2016) No Giant Leap For Mankind: Why We’ve Been Looking At Human Evolution In The Wrong Way. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/no-giant-leap-for-mankind-why-weve-been-looking-at-human-evolution-in-the-wrong-way/. Accessed 30 Oct 2018

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office (2007) Business Systems Modernization: Air Force Needs to Fully Define Policies and Procedures for Institutionally Managing Investments. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Johnson L (2017) The Relationship between Mock Jurors’ Locus of Control, Belief in a Just World, and an NGRI Verdict. Doctoral dissertation, Southern Illinois University

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Vecsey G (2010) Injuries Gain Attention As Football Feels Pain. New York Times B15

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Moore 2010).
This sentence cites two references (Moore 2010; Wollert and Hurley 2010).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Wollert and Hurley 2010)
Three or more authors: (Connolly et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	3 Biotech
Abbreviation	3 Biotech
ISSN (print)	2190-572X
ISSN (online)	2190-5738
Scope	Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous) Biotechnology Environmental Science (miscellaneous)