How to format your references using the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Bulletin of Mathematical Biology. 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:

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
Parman SW (2007) Helium isotopic evidence for episodic mantle melting and crustal growth. Nature 446:900–903
A journal article with 2 authors
Elowitz MB, Leibler S (2000) A synthetic oscillatory network of transcriptional regulators. Nature 403:335–338
A journal article with 3 authors
Bollasina MA, Ming Y, Ramaswamy V (2011) Anthropogenic aerosols and the weakening of the South Asian summer monsoon. Science 334:502–505
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Qi J, Asano T, Jinno M, et al (2005) Characterization of a Phytophthora mating hormone. Science 309:1828

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Utsuro M, Ignatovich VK (2010) Handbook of Neutron Optics. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany
An edited book
Ito Y (ed) (2014) Thought-Evoking Approaches in Engineering Problems. Springer International Publishing, Cham
A chapter in an edited book
Neelameggham N, Brown R, Davis B (2016) Energy-Efficient Sustainable Processes by “Thiometallurgy.” In: Fergus JW, Mishra B, Anderson D, et al. (eds) Engineering Solutions for Sustainability: Materials and Resources II. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 55–71

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 Bulletin of Mathematical Biology.

Blog post
Carpineti A (2016) Scientist Have Built A Reprogrammable Quantum Computer. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/technology/scientist-have-built-a-reprogrammable-quantum-computer/. 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 (1996) Tax Systems Modernization: Management and Technical Weaknesses Must Be Overcome To Achieve Success. 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
Xiong Y (2008) Immuno-Magnetic T Cell Depletion for Allogeneic Hematological Stem Cell Transplantation. Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State 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
Greenhouse L (2006) Justices Weigh Limits on Punitive Damages. New York Times A17

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Parman 2007).
This sentence cites two references (Elowitz and Leibler 2000; Parman 2007).

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

  • Two authors: (Elowitz and Leibler 2000)
  • Three or more authors: (Qi et al. 2005)

About the journal

Full journal titleBulletin of Mathematical Biology
AbbreviationBull. Math. Biol.
ISSN (print)0092-8240
ISSN (online)1522-9602
ScopeGeneral Agricultural and Biological Sciences
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Computational Theory and Mathematics
General Environmental Science
Immunology
General Mathematics
General Neuroscience
Pharmacology

Other styles