How to format your references using the Biochemistry and Cell Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biochemistry and Cell 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

Alexander, M.H. 2011. Chemistry. Chemical kinetics under test. Science 331(6016): 411–412.

A journal article with 2 authors

Mohnen, D., and Tierney, M.L. 2011. Plant science. Plants get Hyp to O-glycosylation. Science 332(6036): 1393–1394.

A journal article with 3 authors

Peñalver, E., Grimaldi, D.A., and Delclòs, X. 2006. Early Cretaceous spider web with its prey. Science 312(5781): 1761.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Noren, A.J., Bierman, P.R., Steig, E.J., Lini, A., and Southon, J. 2002. Millennial-scale storminess variability in the northeastern United States during the Holocene epoch. Nature 419(6909): 821–824.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Parker, D. 2016. International Valuation Standards. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.

An edited book

Ostwald, M.J. (Editor). 2015. Architecture and Mathematics from Antiquity to the Future: Volume I: Antiquity to the 1500s. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Mesquita, M., Restivo, S., and D’Ambrosio, U. 2011. São Paulo. In Asphalt Children and City Streets: A Life, a City and a Case Study of History, Culture, and Ethnomathematics in São Paulo. Edited by M. Mesquita, S. Restivo, and U. D’Ambrosio. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. pp. 71–107.

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 Biochemistry and Cell Biology.

Blog post

Andrew, E. 2014, January 25. What would it look like if a person fell into a volcano? IFLScience. Available from https://www.iflscience.com/environment/what-would-it-look-if-person-fell-volcano/ [accessed 30 October 2018].

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. 1999. Direct Student Loans: Overpayments During the Department of Education’s Conversion to a New Payment System. 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

Beal, M.E. 2013. Predictive qualities of social characteristics and social integration on altruistic outcomes. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Brantley, B. 2016, October 21. Diverting, but No Need to Stop the Presses. New York Times: C1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Alexander 2011).
This sentence cites two references (Alexander 2011; Mohnen and Tierney 2011).

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

Two authors: (Mohnen and Tierney 2011)
Three or more authors: (Noren et al. 2002)

About the journal

Full journal title	Biochemistry and Cell Biology
Abbreviation	Biochem. Cell Biol.
ISSN (print)	0829-8211
ISSN (online)	1208-6002
Scope	Biochemistry Cell Biology Molecular Biology