How to format your references using the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Annual Review of Cell and Developmental 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	Download the output style file
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

Yamamoto A. 2000. Crowded universities cramp more than just students’ style. Nature. 404(6773):13

A journal article with 2 authors

Aaronson DS, Horvath CM. 2002. A road map for those who don’t know JAK-STAT. Science. 296(5573):1653–55

A journal article with 3 authors

Körtner G, Brigham RM, Geiser F. 2000. Winter torpor in a large bird. Nature. 407(6802):318

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Purnell MA, Bell MA, Baines DC, Hart PJB, Travis MP. 2007. Correlated evolution and dietary change in fossil stickleback. Science. 317(5846):1887

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Tobias J, Hochhauser D. 2014. Cancer and Its Management. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

An edited book

Zhang L, Zhang C, eds. 2012. Engineering Education and Management: Vol 2, Results of the 2011 International Conference on Engineering Education and Management (ICEEM2011), Vol. 112. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer

A chapter in an edited book

Semm T, Greene K. 2013. Globalization, Aging, and the Power of the Image. In The Symbolism of Globalization, Development, and Aging, eds. SL Arxer, JW Murphy, pp. 59–66. New York, NY: Springer

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 Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2015. Enormous Centipede Spotted in Texas. IFLScience

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. 2010. Next Generation Air Transportation System: Challenges with Partner Agency and FAA Coordination Continue, and Efforts to Integrate Near-, Mid-, and Long-term Activities Are Ongoing. GAO-10-649T, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Ochse AR. 2013. Targeted Killing, Drones and International Law: How U.S. Practice is Shaping International Law. Doctoral dissertation thesis. George Washington University

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

Wagner J. 2017. Mets Fall to Braves, but Help Is Coming as Cespedes Is Set to Return. New York Times, June 10, , p. D2

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Yamamoto 2000).
This sentence cites two references (Aaronson & Horvath 2002; Yamamoto 2000).

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

Two authors: (Aaronson & Horvath 2002)
Three or more authors: (Purnell et al. 2007)

About the journal

Full journal title	Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology
Abbreviation	Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol.
ISSN (print)	1081-0706
ISSN (online)	1530-8995
Scope	Cell Biology Developmental Biology

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