How to format your references using the BBA - Molecular Cell Research citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BBA - Molecular Cell Research. 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

[1]

R.A. Kerr, CLIMATE: Ice, Mud Point to CO2 Role in Glacial Cycle, Science. 289 (2000) 1868.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

R.C. Gallo, L. Montagnier, Historical essay. Prospects for the future, Science. 298 (2002) 1730–1731.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

J.T. Malinowski, R.J. Sharpe, J.S. Johnson, Enantioselective synthesis of pactamycin, a complex antitumor antibiotic, Science. 340 (2013) 180–182.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

H. Fang, M.E. Oates, R.B. Pethica, J.M. Greenwood, A.J. Sardar, O.J.L. Rackham, P.C.J. Donoghue, A. Stamatakis, D.A. de Lima Morais, J. Gough, A daily-updated tree of (sequenced) life as a reference for genome research, Sci. Rep. 3 (2013) 2015.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

A. Hahn, B. Behle, D. Lischewski, W. Rein, Produktionstechnische Praxis, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2002.

An edited book

[1]

G.S. Fisch, J. Flint, eds., Transgenic and Knockout Models of Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Humana Press, Totowa, NJ, 2006.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

D.V. Vezenov, A. Noy, C.M. Lieber, Chemical Force Microscopy: Force Spectroscopy and Imaging of Complex Interactions in Molecular Assemblies, in: A. Noy (Ed.), Handbook of Molecular Force Spectroscopy, Springer US, Boston, MA, 2008: pp. 123–141.

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 BBA - Molecular Cell Research.

Blog post

[1]

E. Andrew, Galactic “Hot-Dog-Eating Competition” Lasts Hundreds Of Millions Of Years, IFLScience. (2015).

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 Technology: Copyright Office Needs To Develop Plans that Address Technical and Organizational Challenges, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2015.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

J. Boysen, The ESCRT machinery, required for endosomal trafficking, is a pH-signaling platform, Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 2008.

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]

S. Murphy, Feeding More for Less in Niger, New York Times. (2005) A19.

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	BBA - Molecular Cell Research
Abbreviation	Biochim. Biophys. Acta Mol. Cell Res.
ISSN (print)	0167-4889
Scope	Cell Biology Molecular Biology