How to format your references using the Biophysics Reports citation style

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

Marciano WJ (2014) Particle physics: quarks are not ambidextrous. Nature 506:43–44

A journal article with 2 authors

Christensen ST, Ott CM (2007) Cell signaling. A ciliary signaling switch. Science 317:330–331

A journal article with 3 authors

Hoch JC, Maciejewski MW, Gryk MR (2008) Comment on “magnetic resonance spectroscopy identifies neural progenitor cells in the live human brain.” Science 321:640

A journal article with 5 or more authors

LeMieux MC, Roberts M, Barman S, et al (2008) Self-sorted, aligned nanotube networks for thin-film transistors. Science 321:101–104

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Center for Chemical Process Safety (2008) Guidelines for Chemical Transportation Safety, Security, and Risk Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Atwater MM, Russell M, Butler MB (eds) (2014) Multicultural Science Education: Preparing Teachers for Equity and Social Justice. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht

A chapter in an edited book

Sano T, Hori J-I, Takahashi Y, et al (2015) Development of Nondestructive Assay of Fuel Debris of Fukushima Daiichi NPP (2): Numerical Validation for the Application of a Self-Indication Method. In: Nakajima K (ed) Nuclear Back-end and Transmutation Technology for Waste Disposal: Beyond the Fukushima Accident. Springer Japan, Tokyo, pp 31–37

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 Biophysics Reports.

Blog post

Andrew E (2014) Meet The Spider That Lives Its Entire Life In A Bubble Underwater. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/meet-spider-lives-its-entire-life-bubble-underwater/. Accessed 30 Oct 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 (1975) Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Development and the Ability of the Department of the Interior To Administer Such a Program. 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

Gifford SC (2013) (Re)making men, representing the Caribbean nation: Authorial individuation in works by Fred D’aguiar, Robert Antoni, and Marlon James. Doctoral dissertation, Florida Atlantic University

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

Schembari J (2016) A Father, a Son and the Porsche They Went In On Together. New York Times B4

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Marciano 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Christensen and Ott 2007; Marciano 2014).

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

Two authors: (Christensen and Ott 2007)
Three or more authors: (LeMieux et al. 2008)

About the journal

Full journal title	Biophysics Reports
Abbreviation	Biophys. Rep.
ISSN (print)	2364-3439
ISSN (online)	2364-3420
Scope

Research and Writing Guides