How to format your references using the Algorithms for Molecular Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Algorithms for Molecular Biology. 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

1. Dresser R. Research ethics. Aligning regulations and ethics in human research. Science. 2012;337:527–8.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Steele EJ, Blanden RV. Lamarck and antibody genes. Science. 2000;288:2318d–9d.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Barsh GS, Farooqi IS, O’Rahilly S. Genetics of body-weight regulation. Nature. 2000;404:644–51.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Gómez-Gutiérrez J, Peterson WT, De Robertis A, Brodeur RD. Mass mortality of krill caused by parasitoid ciliates. Science. 2003;301:339.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Pines JM, Carpenter CR, Raja AS, Schuur JD. Evidence-Based Emergency Care. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2012.

An edited book

1. Gao MC, Yeh J-W, Liaw PK, Zhang Y, editors. High-Entropy Alloys: Fundamentals and Applications. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Strand P. Introduction – Norwegian Perspective on Nuclear Legacy. In: Sneve MK, Kiselev MF, editors. Challenges in Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Regulation of the Nuclear Legacy. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2008. p. 27–9.

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 Algorithms for Molecular Biology.

Blog post

1. Hamilton K. A Dietitian Puts Extreme “Clean Eating” Claims To The Test – And The Results Aren’t Pretty [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/a-dietitian-puts-extreme-clean-eating-claims-to-the-test-and-the-results-arent-pretty/

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

1. Government Accountability Office. Information on Prime Sponsor CETA Expenditures Related to Membership Organizations. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1981 Oct. Report No.: HRD-82-5.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Beard JA. Evidence of Leadership Competencies in the Journal of Mary Easton Sibley, a Pioneering 19th Century Women’s College Founder [Doctoral dissertation]. [ St. Charles, MO]: Lindenwood University; 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

1. Murphy MJO. Friday File. New York Times. 2015 Jan 16;C36.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in square brackets:

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	Algorithms for Molecular Biology
Abbreviation	Algorithms Mol. Biol.
ISSN (online)	1748-7188
Scope	Molecular Biology Structural Biology Computational Theory and Mathematics Applied Mathematics

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