How to format your references using the Biotechnology Reports citation style

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

[1]

B. Vastag, Assembly work, Nature. 453 (2008) 422–423.

A journal article with 2 authors

[1]

M. Pérez-Gussinyé, A.B. Watts, The long-term strength of Europe and its implications for plate-forming processes, Nature. 436 (2005) 381–384.

A journal article with 3 authors

[1]

G.M. Mace, J.L. Gittleman, A. Purvis, Preserving the tree of life, Science. 300 (2003) 1707–1709.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

[1]

D. Li, R. Zhao, W. Lilyestrom, D. Gai, R. Zhang, J.A. DeCaprio, E. Fanning, A. Jochimiak, G. Szakonyi, X.S. Chen, Structure of the replicative helicase of the oncoprotein SV40 large tumour antigen, Nature. 423 (2003) 512–518.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

[1]

K.R. Callahan, G.S. Stetz, L.M. Brooks, Project Management Accounting, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2011.

An edited book

[1]

A. Giordano, U. Galderisi, eds., Cell Cycle Regulation and Differentiation in Cardiovascular and Neural Systems, Springer, New York, NY, 2010.

A chapter in an edited book

[1]

C. Raschke, P. Elsner, Skin Aging: A Brief Summary of Characteristic Changes, in: M.A. Farage, K.W. Miller, H.I. Maibach (Eds.), Textbook of Aging Skin, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010: pp. 37–43.

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 Biotechnology Reports.

Blog post

[1]

S. Luntz, Your Mood Can Affect Your Ability To See Color, IFLScience. (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/brain/feeling-blue-makes-it-hard-see-blues/ (accessed October 30, 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

[1]

Government Accountability Office, [Comments on Proposed Changes to DAR Cost Principles and Internal Procedures], U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1982.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

[1]

G.C. Boyer, Best Practices for Student Success on the ACT, Doctoral dissertation, Lindenwood University, 2012.

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

[1]

S.K. (nyt), World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Hacker Halts New Kremlin TV Channel, New York Times. (2005) A16.

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	Biotechnology Reports
Abbreviation	Biotechnol. Rep. (Amst.)
ISSN (print)	2215-017X
Scope