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

Sarnthein M (2011) Paleoclimate. Northern meltwater pulses, CO2, and changes in Atlantic convection. Science 331:156–158

A journal article with 2 authors

Chaudhuri J, Jasin M (2007) Immunology. Antibodies get a break. Science 315:335–336

A journal article with 3 authors

Yamashita T, Hige T, Takahashi T (2005) Vesicle endocytosis requires dynamin-dependent GTP hydrolysis at a fast CNS synapse. Science 307:124–127

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Spencer RMC, Zelaznik HN, Diedrichsen J, Ivry RB (2003) Disrupted timing of discontinuous but not continuous movements by cerebellar lesions. Science 300:1437–1439

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Wood J, Brown W, Howe H (2013) IT Auditing and Application Controls for Small and Mid-Sized Enterprises. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Calude CS, Calude E, Dinneen MJ (eds) (2005) Developments in Language Theory: 8th International Conference, DLT 2004, Auckland, New Zealand, December 13-17, 2004. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Tam E, Sweeney T-A (2016) Learning with iPads in Early Childhood Education. In: Orrell J, Curtis DD (eds) Publishing Higher Degree Research: Making the Transition from Student to Researcher. SensePublishers, Rotterdam, pp 43–52

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 E (2015) We Have 15 Years To Halt Biodiversity Loss, Can It Be Done? In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/we-have-15-years-halt-biodiversity-loss-can-it-be-done/. 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 (1997) District of Columbia Government: Overtime Costs Exceed Those of Neighboring Governments. 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

Cetin B (2012) Leaching of metals from high carbon fly ash mixed soils. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park

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) Pioneers Continue To Shepherd Women’s Basketball. New York Times B14

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Sarnthein 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Chaudhuri and Jasin 2007; Sarnthein 2011).

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

Two authors: (Chaudhuri and Jasin 2007)
Three or more authors: (Spencer et al. 2003)

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)