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

Worm B. ECOLOGY. A most unusual (super)predator. Science. 2015 Aug 21;349(6250):784–5.

A journal article with 2 authors

Shekhawat GS, Dravid VP. Nanoscale imaging of buried structures via scanning near-field ultrasound holography. Science. 2005 Oct 7;310(5745):89–92.

A journal article with 3 authors

Barna M, Pandolfi PP, Niswander L. Gli3 and Plzf cooperate in proximal limb patterning at early stages of limb development. Nature. 2005 Jul 14;436(7048):277–81.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Johnnidis JB, Harris MH, Wheeler RT, Stehling-Sun S, Lam MH, Kirak O, et al. Regulation of progenitor cell proliferation and granulocyte function by microRNA-223. Nature. 2008 Feb 28;451(7182):1125–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Sierra MA, de la Torre MC, Cossío FP. More Dead Ends and Detours. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2013.

An edited book

Aalen OO. Survival and Event History Analysis: A Process Point of View. Borgan Ø, Gjessing HK, editors. New York, NY: Springer; 2008.

A chapter in an edited book

Tønnessen M. Umwelt and Language. In: Velmezova E, Kull K, Cowley SJ, editors. Biosemiotic Perspectives on Language and Linguistics. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2015. p. 77–96.

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

Andrews R. These Three Sex Acts Are The Key To Female Orgasms, According To A New Study [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2017 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/this-golden-trio-of-sex-acts-is-the-key-to-female-orgasms/

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. Discretionary Grants: Education Needs to Improve Its Oversight of Grants Monitoring. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2017 Apr. Report No.: GAO-17-266.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Garrett D. A quantitative study of STEM goal and role alignment across stakeholder leaders in California: Advocacy for application of a systems solution approach [Doctoral dissertation]. [Malibu, CA]: Pepperdine University; 2013.

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

Saslow L. The Power of the Adolescent Pen. New York Times. 2006 Mar 26;14LI8.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Worm 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Shekhawat and Dravid 2005; Worm 2015).

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

Two authors: (Shekhawat and Dravid 2005)
Three or more authors: (Johnnidis et al. 2008)

About the journal

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