How to format your references using the Biological Cybernetics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biological Cybernetics. 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

Levasseur-Regourd A-C (2004) Cometary dust unveiled. Science 304:1762–1763

A journal article with 2 authors

Turi L, Madarász A (2011) Comment on “Does the hydrated electron occupy a cavity?” Science 331:1387; author reply 1387

A journal article with 3 authors

Jiang G, Kennedy MJ, Christie-Blick N (2003) Stable isotopic evidence for methane seeps in Neoproterozoic postglacial cap carbonates. Nature 426:822–826

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Bertaina S, Gambarelli S, Mitra T, et al (2008) Quantum oscillations in a molecular magnet. Nature 453:203–206

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Shynk JJ (2016) Mathematical Foundations for Linear Circuits and Systems in Engineering. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

New TR (ed) (2007) Beetle Conservation. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

A chapter in an edited book

McGee RW (2008) A Comparative Study of Indirect Taxes in Transition Economies and the European Union. In: McGee RW (ed) Taxation and Public Finance in Transition and Developing Economies. Springer US, Boston, MA, pp 57–65

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 Biological Cybernetics.

Blog post

Davis J (2015) Scotland To Ban Growing Commercial GM Crops. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/scotland-ban-growing-commercial-gm-crops/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1990) Administrative Systems: NASA Should Reassess Its AIM Program and Rescind Its IBM-Compatible Policy. 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

Ayhan MS (2015) A Probabilistic Biomarker for Alzheimer’s Disease. Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana

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

Lou Jepsen M (2013) Bringing Back My Real Self With Hormones. New York Times SR6

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Levasseur-Regourd 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Levasseur-Regourd 2004; Turi and Madarász 2011).

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

Two authors: (Turi and Madarász 2011)
Three or more authors: (Bertaina et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Biological Cybernetics
Abbreviation	Biol. Cybern.
ISSN (print)	0340-1200
ISSN (online)	1432-0770
Scope	Biotechnology General Computer Science