How to format your references using the Biomimetics citation style

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

Blow, N. Cell Imaging: New Ways to See a Smaller World. Nature 2008, 456, 825–828.

A journal article with 2 authors

Vance, S.A.; Sandros, M.G. Zeptomole Detection of C-Reactive Protein in Serum by a Nanoparticle Amplified Surface Plasmon Resonance Imaging Aptasensor. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 5129.

A journal article with 3 authors

Rolland-Lagan, A.-G.; Bangham, J.A.; Coen, E. Growth Dynamics Underlying Petal Shape and Asymmetry. Nature 2003, 422, 161–163.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Lauterbach, M.A.; Guillon, M.; Soltani, A.; Emiliani, V. STED Microscope with Spiral Phase Contrast. Sci. Rep. 2013, 3, 2050.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Cook, H.F. The Protection and Conservation of Water Resources; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester, UK, 2017; ISBN 9781119334316.

An edited book

Advances in Web-Based Learning – ICWL 2010: 9th International Conference, Shanghai, China, December 8-10, 2010. Proceedings; Luo, X., Spaniol, M., Wang, L., Li, Q., Nejdl, W., Zhang, W., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010; Vol. 6483; ISBN 9783642174063.

A chapter in an edited book

Clay, S.M.; Fong, S.S. Synthetic Biology. In Developing Biofuel Bioprocesses Using Systems and Synthetic Biology; Fong, S.S., Ed.; SpringerBriefs in Systems Biology; Springer: New York, NY, 2013; pp. 37–44 ISBN 9781461455790.

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 Biomimetics.

Blog post

Hale, T. More Evidence Links Epilepsy With Vivid Religious Experiences Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/brain/more-evidence-links-epilepsy-with-vivid-religious-experiences/ (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 Household Goods Transport; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1992;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Savage, F. Effect of Dry-Wet Cycles on Fracture Propagation in Shale and Gas Production Mechanism. Doctoral dissertation, University of Louisiana: Lafayette, LA, 2014.

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

Vecsey, G. On Final Day, Tears and Jeers. New York Times 2011, B17.

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	Biomimetics
Abbreviation	Biomimetics (Basel)
ISSN (online)	2313-7673
Scope