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. Odling-Smee L. Science education: a science giant moves house. Nature. 2013;496:167.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Friedrich RW, Laurent G. Dynamic optimization of odor representations by slow temporal patterning of mitral cell activity. Science. 2001;291:889–94.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Deng B, Zhang RQ, Shi XQ. New insight into the spin-conserving excitation of the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5144.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Wee SH, Zuev YL, Cantoni C, Goyal A. Engineering nanocolumnar defect configurations for optimized vortex pinning in high temperature superconducting nanocomposite wires. Sci Rep. 2013;3:2310.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Möller R, Pöter H, Schwarze K. Planen und Bauen mit Trapezprofilen und Sandwichelementen. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2011.

An edited book

1. Clauss M, Breier G, editors. Mechanisms of Angiogenesis. Basel: Birkhäuser; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Caubergh M, Roussarie R. Canard Cycles with Three Breaking Mechanisms. In: Toni B, editor. Mathematical Sciences with Multidisciplinary Applications: In Honor of Professor Christiane Rousseau And In Recognition of the Mathematics for Planet Earth Initiative. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016. p. 61–77.

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 E. The Dusky Dottyback, A Master Of Disguise In The Animal World. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015.

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. Office of Education’s Efforts To Recover Overpayments from Denver Indian Center. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1978 Nov. Report No.: B-164031(1).68.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Norman CL. Perceptions of non-traditional programs within Missouri school districts [Doctoral dissertation]. [ St. Charles, MO]: Lindenwood University; 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. Prochnik G. Days of Observance. New York Times. 2015 Sep 6;BR16.

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