How to format your references using the AMB Express citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for AMB Express. 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

Crow JM. Insomnia: chasing the dream. Nature. 2013 May 23;497(7450):S16-8.

A journal article with 2 authors

Müller F-J, Loring JF. Network biology: A compass for stem-cell differentiation. Nature. 2014 Sep 25;513(7519):498–9.

A journal article with 3 authors

Casanueva MO, Burga A, Lehner B. Fitness trade-offs and environmentally induced mutation buffering in isogenic C. elegans. Science. 2012 Jan 6;335(6064):82–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Subiaul F, Cantlon JF, Holloway RL, Terrace HS. Cognitive imitation in rhesus macaques. Science. 2004 Jul 16;305(5682):407–10.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Simon J. Banach, Fréchet, Hilbert and Neumann Spaces. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2017.

An edited book

Olausson H, Wessberg J, Morrison I, McGlone F, editors. Affective Touch and the Neurophysiology of CT Afferents. New York, NY: Springer; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Hodicky J. Autonomous Systems Operationalization Gaps Overcome by Modelling and Simulation. In: Hodicky J, editor. Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems: Third International Workshop, MESAS 2016, Rome, Italy, June 15-16, 2016, Revised Selected Papers. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 40–7.

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 AMB Express.

Blog post

Hale T. Giraffes Face “Silent Extinction” As Numbers Drop 40 Percent In 30 years [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/giraffes-face-silent-extinction-as-nubers-drop-40-percent-in-30-years/

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. John P. Abbadessa, 1947-1962. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1990 Nov. Report No.: OP-18-OH.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Tablason JM. Recollecting [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 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

(nyt) SK. World Briefing | Europe: Ukraine: Border Accord With Russia. New York Times. 2003 Jan 29;A6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Crow 2013).
This sentence cites two references (Crow 2013; Müller and Loring 2014).

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

Two authors: (Müller and Loring 2014)
Three or more authors: (Subiaul et al. 2004)

About the journal

Full journal title	AMB Express
Abbreviation	AMB Express
ISSN (online)	2191-0855
Scope	Biophysics Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology