How to format your references using the Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B (APSB). 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

Woof JM. Immunology. Tipping the scales toward more effective antibodies. Science 2005;310(5753):1442–3.

A journal article with 2 authors

Garrett S., Rosenthal JJC. RNA editing underlies temperature adaptation in K+ channels from polar octopuses. Science 2012;335(6070):848–51.

A journal article with 3 authors

Vander Heiden MG., Cantley LC., Thompson CB. Understanding the Warburg effect: the metabolic requirements of cell proliferation. Science 2009;324(5930):1029–33.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Wang Q., Zhang H., Ma G., Liao Y., Tang X., Zhong Z. Spectrum gaps of spin waves generated by interference in a uniform nanostripe waveguide. Sci Rep 2014;4:5917.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Fernandez-Maloigne C., Robert-Inacio F., Macaire L. Digital Color, Hoboken, NJ USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2012.

An edited book

Dolšek M. Protection of Built Environment Against Earthquakes, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

Hadar Y., Cullen D. 5 Organopollutant Degradation by Wood Decay Basidiomycetes. In: Kempken F, editor. Agricultural Applications, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013, p. 115–41.

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 Pharmaceutica Sinica B.

Blog post

Davis J. Researchers Create A Stable Organism Containing Synthetic DNA That Can Replicate Indefinitely. IFLScience. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/researchers-create-a-stable-organism-containing-synthetic-dna-that-can-replicate-indefinitely/ [accessed October 30, 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. Department of Education: The Eisenhower Math and Science State Grant Program, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1992.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Russo CA. The potential harms of breast cancer screening: estimating the unnecessary surgical diagnosis of benign breast lesions and its impact on quality and cost among insured women younger than 65 years old. Doctoral dissertation, George Washington University, Washington, DC, 2014.

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

Midler T., Leland J. On Any Given Wednesday. New York Times 2017:MB7.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ¹.
This sentence cites two references ^1,2.
This sentence cites four references ^1–4.

About the journal

Full journal title	Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B
Abbreviation	Acta Pharm. Sin. B.
ISSN (print)	2211-3835
ISSN (online)	2211-3843
Scope	General Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics