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

Church G. 2013. Improving genome understanding. Nature 502: 143.

A journal article with 2 authors

Baron CL, Malhotra V. 2002. Role of diacylglycerol in PKD recruitment to the TGN and protein transport to the plasma membrane. Science 295: 325–8.

A journal article with 3 authors

Rougier GW, Apesteguía S, Gaetano LC. 2011. Highly specialized mammalian skulls from the Late Cretaceous of South America. Nature 479: 98–102.

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Earle MJ, Esperança JMSS, Gilea MA, Lopes JNC, et al. 2006. The distillation and volatility of ionic liquids. Nature 439: 831–4.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Glisic SG. 2011. Advanced Wireless Communications & Internet. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Haan L de. 2007. Applied Mathematics for Database Professionals. Berkeley, CA: Apress.

A chapter in an edited book

White-Cooper H, Caporilli S. 2013. Transcriptional and Post-transcriptional Regulation of Drosophila Germline Stem Cells and Their Differentiating Progeny. In Hime G,Abud H. ed; Transcriptional and Translational Regulation of Stem Cells. Springer Netherlands. p 47–61.

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

Andrew E. 2015. Smartphone Microscope Diagnoses Parasitic Worm Infection. 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. 1991. Meeting the Aviation Challenges of the 1990s: Experts Define Key Problems and Identify Emerging Issues.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Mark M. 2017. A peer mentorship program for youth transitioning out of foster care: A grant proposal.

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

Feeney K. 2011. Sip, Munch and Cheer. New York Times : NJ10.

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