How to format your references using the Biological Reviews citation style

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

Nathan, C. (2004) Antibiotics at the crossroads. Nature 431, 899–902.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sonenberg, N. & Newgard, C.B. (2001) Protein synthesis. The perks of balancing glucose. Science (New York, N.Y.) 293, 818–819.

A journal article with 3 authors

Tanaka, G., Urabe, C. & Aihara, K. (2014) Random and targeted interventions for epidemic control in metapopulation models. Scientific reports 4, 5522.

A journal article with 16 or more authors

Daniel, C., Full, J., González, L., Lupulescu, C., Manz, J., Merli, A., Vajda, S. & Wöste, L. (2003) Deciphering the reaction dynamics underlying optimal control laser fields. Science (New York, N.Y.) 299, 536–539.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Bunnell, T. (2016) From World City to the World in One City. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.

An edited book

Cen, K., Chi, Y. & Wang, F. (eds) (2007) Challenges of Power Engineering and Environment: Proceedings of the International Conference on Power Engineering 2007. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Chen, A. (2011) Pre-transplant Evaluation. In Blood and Marrow Transplant Handbook: Comprehensive Guide for Patient Care (eds R.T. Maziarz & S. Slater), pp. 27–37. Springer, New York, NY.

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 Reviews.

Blog post

Andrew, E. (2014) Health Check: five supplements that may help with depression. IFLScience. IFLScience. Https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/health-check-five-supplements-may-help-depression/ [accessed 30 October 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 (1988) Degradable Plastics: Standards, Research and Development. 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

Kaplan, C.M. (2017) Understanding the Anxiolytic Effects of Alcohol on the Central Extended Amygdala in Humans. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD.

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

Kanter, J. & Scott, M. (2016) Deal for Apple on Irish Taxes Is Ruled Illegal. New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Nathan, 2004).
This sentence cites two references (Sonenberg & Newgard, 2001; Nathan, 2004).

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

Two authors: (Sonenberg & Newgard, 2001)
Three authors: (Tanaka, Urabe & Aihara, 2014)
4 or more authors: (Daniel et al., 2003)

About the journal

Full journal title	Biological Reviews
Abbreviation	Biol. Rev. Camb. Philos. Soc.
ISSN (print)	1464-7931
ISSN (online)	1469-185X
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

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