How to format your references using the Acta Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology Communications citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology Communications. 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

Smith, A. (2014). Nature 505, 622–623.

A journal article with 2 authors

Bull, J. J. & Parrish, C. R. (2002). Science 297, 201–202.

A journal article with 3 authors

Henikoff, S., Ahmad, K. & Malik, H. S. (2001). Science 293, 1098–1102.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Matsubayashi, K., Maki, M., Tsuzuki, T., Nishioka, T. & Sato, N. K. (2002). Nature 420, 143–144; discussion 144.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bonneau, D., Fatu, A. & Souchet, D. (2014). Thermo-Hydrodynamic Lubrication in Hydrodynamic Bearings Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Beaufils, P. & Verdonk, R. (2010). The Meniscus Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Kihara, K., Matsuoka, Y., Ishioka, J., Fujii, Y., Saito, K., Numao, N., Kawamura, N. & Inoue, M. (2015). Vol. Gasless Single-Port RoboSurgeon Surgery in Urology, edited by K. Kihara. pp. 85–104. Tokyo: Springer Japan.

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 Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology Communications.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014). IFLScience, https://www.iflscience.com/technology/57-year-old-man-skydives-stratosphere-breaking-baumgartner-s-record/.

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 (1979). Correctional Institutions Can Do More To Improve the Employability of Offenders Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Dhantole, G. (2014). Evaluating provision of healthcare system in the U.S. Doctoral dissertation. California State University, Long Beach.

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

Greenhouse, L. (2011). New York Times WK11.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smith, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Smith, 2014; Bull & Parrish, 2002).

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

Two authors: (Bull & Parrish, 2002)
Three or more authors: (Matsubayashi et al., 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Acta Crystallographica Section F: Structural Biology Communications
Abbreviation	Acta Crystallogr. F Struct. Biol. Commun.
ISSN (online)	2053-230X
Scope	Biochemistry Biophysics Genetics Structural Biology Condensed Matter Physics