How to format your references using the BioEssays citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for BioEssays. 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. Schmitz, O. J. (2008). Effects of predator hunting mode on grassland ecosystem function. Science (New York, N.Y.), 319(5865), 952–954.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Bhat, S. G., & Kumar, P. S. A. (2014). Room temperature electrical spin injection into GaAs by an oxide spin injector. Scientific Reports, 4, 5588.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Jarillo-Herrero, P., van Dam, J. A., & Kouwenhoven, L. P. (2006). Quantum supercurrent transistors in carbon nanotubes. Nature, 439(7079), 953–956.

A journal article with 21 or more authors

1. Xia, K., Rosakis, A. J., Kanamori, H., & Rice, J. R. (2005). Laboratory earthquakes along inhomogeneous faults: directionality and supershear. Science (New York, N.Y.), 308(5722), 681–684.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. McCrary, S. A. (2009). Mastering Financial Accounting Essentials. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

1. Bronchud, M. H., Foote, M. A., Giaccone, G., Olopade, O., & Workman, P. (Eds.). (2008). Principles of Molecular Oncology (Third Edition). Humana Press.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Páez, D. G., Padrón, V., de Buenaga, M., & Aparicio, F. (2013). Improving Health Services Using Cloud Computing, Big Data and Wireless Sensors. In C. Nugent, A. Coronato, & J. Bravo (Eds.), Ambient Assisted Living and Active Aging: 5th International Work-Conference, IWAAL 2013, Carrillo, Costa Rica, December 2-6, 2013, Proceedings (pp. 35–38). Springer International Publishing.

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 BioEssays.

Blog post

1. Hale, T. (2017, March 6). Fukushima Is Turning Into A Robot Graveyard After Multiple Probe Failures. IFLScience; IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/fukushima-is-turning-into-a-robot-graveyard-after-multiple-probe-failures/

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. (2010). Telecommunications: FCC’s Performance Management Weaknesses Could Jeopardize Proposed Reforms of the Rural Health Care Program (GAO-11-27). U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Bernstine, J. T. (2015). Experiences of Students Transferring from Community and Technical Colleges to a Private Nonprofit University [Doctoral dissertation]. 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

1. Chira, S., & Martin, J. (2017, January 22). Marchers Map Out Next Steps. New York Times, A1.

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	BioEssays
Abbreviation	Bioessays
ISSN (print)	0265-9247
ISSN (online)	1521-1878
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology