How to format your references using the Biophysical Journal citation style

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

Murphy, K.M. 2011. Comment on “Activation of β-catenin in dendritic cells regulates immunity versus tolerance in the intestine.” Science. 333:405; author reply 405.

A journal article with 2 authors

Meyer, J.R., and R. Kassen. 2007. The effects of competition and predation on diversification in a model adaptive radiation. Nature. 446:432–435.

A journal article with 3 authors

Berkhout, J., B. Teusink, and F.J. Bruggeman. 2013. Gene network requirements for regulation of metabolic gene expression to a desired state. Sci. Rep. 3:1417.

A journal article with 99 or more authors

Minobe, S., A. Kuwano-Yoshida, N. Komori, S.-P. Xie, and R.J. Small. 2008. Influence of the Gulf Stream on the troposphere. Nature. 452:206–209.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Machner, H. 2005. Einführung in die Kern- und Elementarteilchenphysik. Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

An edited book

2016. The US National Climate Assessment: Innovations in Science and Engagement. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

A chapter in an edited book

Bastasch, M., and H. Choy. 2006. Combinations of Topoisomerase Inhibitors and Ionizing Radiation. In: Brown JM, MP Mehta, C Nieder, editors. Multimodal Concepts for Integration of Cytotoxic Drugs. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. pp. 53–66.

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 Biophysical Journal.

Blog post

Andrew, E. 2014. We Could Find Alien Life, But Politicians Don’t Have The Will. IFLScience.

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. 1987. National Science Foundation: Problems Found in Decision Process for Awarding Earthquake Center. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Schmittel, M. 2013. The Children First Foundation Parenting Education Program: A Study on the Effectiveness of a Divorce Parenting Education Program. .

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

Gurley, G. 2016. On the Town With a Fleet Week Newbie. New York Times. ST1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in parentheses:

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	Biophysical Journal
Abbreviation	Biophys. J.
ISSN (print)	0006-3495
ISSN (online)	1542-0086
Scope	Biophysics