How to format your references using the Acta Biotheoretica citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Biotheoretica. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Greenman CD (2012) Cancer. Haploinsufficient gene selection in cancer. Science 337:47–48

A journal article with 2 authors

Irwing P, Lynn R (2006) Intelligence: is there a sex difference in IQ scores? Nature 442:E1; discussion E1-2

A journal article with 3 authors

Nishida H, Pigg KB, Rigby JF (2003) Palaeobotany: Swimming sperm in an extinct Gondwanan plant. Nature 422:396–397

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Schedlbauer AM, Copara MS, Watrous AJ, Ekstrom AD (2014) Multiple interacting brain areas underlie successful spatiotemporal memory retrieval in humans. Sci Rep 4:6431

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Rhee MY (2013) Wireless Mobile Internet Security. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK

An edited book

Roberts LW (ed) (2013) The Academic Medicine Handbook: A Guide to Achievement and Fulfillment for Academic Faculty. Springer, New York, NY

A chapter in an edited book

O’Neill RP, Helman U, Hobbs BF, et al (2013) A Joint Energy and Transmission Rights Auction on a Network with Nonlinear Constraints: Design, Pricing and Revenue Adequacy. In: Rosellón J, Kristiansen T (eds) Financial Transmission Rights: Analysis, Experiences and Prospects. Springer, London, pp 95–127

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 Acta Biotheoretica.

Blog post

Andrew E (2013) Computer Program Reconstructed Dinosaur Locomotion. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/computer-program-reconstructed-dinosaur-locomotion/. 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 (1975) Information on the New Community of Soul City, North Carolina. 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

Kutash M (2015) The Relationship Between Nurses’ Emotional Intelligence and Patient Outcomes. Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida

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

Kelly C (2012) Personal Finance Advice, Taken to the Woodshed. New York Times BU6

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Greenman 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Irwing and Lynn 2006; Greenman 2012).

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

Two authors: (Irwing and Lynn 2006)
Three or more authors: (Schedlbauer et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	Acta Biotheoretica
Abbreviation	Acta Biotheor.
ISSN (print)	0001-5342
ISSN (online)	1572-8358
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Philosophy General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology General Environmental Science Applied Mathematics General Medicine