How to format your references using the Biological Research citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Biological 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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. Brasaemle DL. Cell biology. A metabolic push to proliferate. Science. 2006;313:1581–2.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Ize B, Palmer T. Microbiology. Mycobacteria’s export strategy. Science. 2006;313:1583–4.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Bouvier F, Dogbo O, Camara B. Biosynthesis of the food and cosmetic plant pigment bixin (annatto). Science. 2003;300:2089–91.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Gudiksen MS, Lauhon LJ, Wang J, Smith DC, Lieber CM. Growth of nanowire superlattice structures for nanoscale photonics and electronics. Nature. 2002;415:617–20.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Clark M. Understanding Diabetes. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2006.

An edited book

1. Galizia CG, Lledo P-M, editors. Neurosciences - From Molecule to Behavior: a university textbook. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Sharan Y. The Bioterrorism Threat. In: Green MS, Zenilman J, Cohen D, Wiser I, Balicer RD, editors. Risk Assessment and Risk Communication Strategies in Bioterrorism Preparedness. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2007. p. 45–54.

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 Research.

Blog post

1. Andrew D. Monkeys In South America Are Almost All Colour Blind And No One Knows Why. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016.

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. Opportunities for Improving Cash Management Practices, Regional Finance and Data Processing Center, Paris, France. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1972 Oct. Report No.: 093268.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Hernandez K. Life skills education for at-risk youth at Soledad Enrichment Action Charter High School: A grant proposal [Doctoral dissertation]. [Long Beach, CA]: California State University, Long Beach; 2015.

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. Walsh MW. Bad Math and a Coming Public Pension Crisis. New York Times. 2015 Jul 9;B1.

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	Biological Research
ISSN (online)	0717-6287
Scope