How to format your references using the Biology Letters citation style

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

Zala K. 2007 Careers in behavioral science. Public opinion research: measuring happiness. Science 316, 1060–1061.

A journal article with 2 authors

Rupert PB, Ferré-D’Amaré AR. 2001 Crystal structure of a hairpin ribozyme-inhibitor complex with implications for catalysis. Nature 410, 780–786.

A journal article with 3 authors

Chen R-P, Chew K-H, He S. 2013 Dynamic control of collapse in a vortex Airy beam. Sci. Rep. 3, 1406.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Fang C, Frontiera RR, Tran R, Mathies RA. 2009 Mapping GFP structure evolution during proton transfer with femtosecond Raman spectroscopy. Nature 462, 200–204.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Voldman SH. 2014 ESD. Chichester, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Li J. 2013 From Multiscale Modeling to Meso-Science: A Chemical Engineering Perspective. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Lu M, Corriveau P. 2011 From Personal to Collaborative Information Management: A Design Science’s Approach. In Human Interface and the Management of Information. Interacting with Information: Symposium on Human Interface 2011, Held as Part of HCI International 2011, Orlando, FL, USA, July 9-14, 2011, Proceedings, Part II (eds G Salvendy, MJ Smith), pp. 36–45. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

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 Biology Letters.

Blog post

Andrew E. 2014 Ordering The Vegetarian Meal? There’s More Animal Blood On Your Hands. IFLScience. See https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ordering-vegetarian-meal-there-s-more-animal-blood-your-hands/ (accessed on 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. 2009 Aviation Security: Status of Transportation Security Inspector Workforce.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Gill GJ. 2009 The experience of family caregiving of the terminally ill: A phenomenological study. Doctoral dissertation, Capella University, Minneapolis, MN.

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

Silver-Greenberg J, Protess B, Corkery M. 2017 Deal With Saudis Underlines Benefits of Backing President. New York Times, 19 August. , A1.

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	Biology Letters
Abbreviation	Biol. Lett.
ISSN (print)	1744-9561
ISSN (online)	1744-957X
Scope	General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous)