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

Smaglik P. Corridor at the crossroads: Michigan. Nature. 2002 Nov 21;420(6913):4–5.

A journal article with 2 authors

Moore DE, Rymer MJ. Talc-bearing serpentinite and the creeping section of the San Andreas fault. Nature. 2007 Aug 16;448(7155):795–7.

A journal article with 3 authors

Ward AB, Sali A, Wilson IA. Biochemistry. Integrative structural biology. Science. 2013 Feb 22;339(6122):913–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Poole AJ, Li Y, Kim Y, Lin S-CJ, Lee W-H, Lee EY-HP. Prevention of Brca1-mediated mammary tumorigenesis in mice by a progesterone antagonist. Science. 2006 Dec 1;314(5804):1467–70.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Lee JC, McCormick NJ. Risk and Safety Analysis of Nuclear Systems. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

Pihlström S. Kantian Antitheodicy: Philosophical and Literary Varieties. Kivistö S, editor. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Koschmider A, Kriglstein S, Ullrich M. Investigations on User Preferences of the Alignment of Process Activities, Objects and Roles. In: Meersman R, Panetto H, Dillon T, Eder J, Bellahsene Z, Ritter N, et al., editors. On the Move to Meaningful Internet Systems: OTM 2013 Conferences: Confederated International Conferences: CoopIS, DOA-Trusted Cloud, and ODBASE 2013, Graz, Austria, September 9-13, 2013. Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. p. 57–74.

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

Taub B. Quitting Smoking Reverses Dopamine Deficits In The Brain [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/quitting-smoking-reverses-dopamine-deficits-in-the-brain/

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. Aviation Noise: Costs of Phasing Out Noisy Aircraft. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991 Jul. Report No.: RCED-91-128.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Mac Garrigle EF. A validation of the enterprise management engineering approach to knowledge management systems engineering [Doctoral dissertation]. [Washington, DC]: George Washington University; 2006.

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

Yablonsky L. Savoir Fair. New York Times. 2007 Dec 2;6150.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Smaglik 2002).
This sentence cites two references (Moore and Rymer 2007; Smaglik 2002).

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

Two authors: (Moore and Rymer 2007)
Three or more authors: (Poole et al. 2006)

About the journal

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

Research and Writing Guides