How to format your references using the Cell citation style

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

Korotev, R.L. (2004). Planetary science. A unique chunk of the Moon. Science 305, 622–623.

A journal article with 2 authors

Webby, R.J., and Webster, R.G. (2003). Are we ready for pandemic influenza? Science 302, 1519–1522.

A journal article with 3 authors

Locher, K.P., Bass, R.B., and Rees, D.C. (2003). Structural biology. Breaching the barrier. Science 301, 603–604.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Shimizu, K., Ishikawa, H., Takao, D., Yagi, T., and Amaya, K. (2002). Superconductivity in compressed lithium at 20 K. Nature 419, 597–599.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Ruppel, W. (2014). GAAP for Governments 2014 (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).

An edited book

Bignami, G.F. (2013). A Scenario for Interstellar Exploration and Its Financing A. Sommariva, ed. (Springer).

A chapter in an edited book

Turner, D. (2009). Unresolved Issues in Globalisation, Decentralisation and Privatisation. In Decentralisation, School-Based Management, and Quality, J. Zajda and D. T. Gamage, eds. (Springer Netherlands), pp. 67–75.

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 Cell.

Blog post

Andrews, R. (2016). Kuwait Scorched By 54-Degree Heat On Hottest Day Ever In Eastern Hemisphere. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/environment/kuwait-scorched-by-54degree-heat-on-hottest-day-ever-in-eastern-hemisphere/.

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 (2000). Tax Systems Modernization: Results of Review of IRS’ August 2000 Interim Spending Plan (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

Francom, C. (2012). Análisis sociolingüístico de eleccion de lengua en encuentros de servicio: Una perspectiva etnográfica y experimental.

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

Powell, M. (2017). You’re No. 1 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ... ). New York Times, B8.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference ².
This sentence cites two references ^2,4.
This sentence cites four references ^2,4,6,8.

About the journal

Full journal title	Cell
Abbreviation	Cell
ISSN (print)	0092-8674
ISSN (online)	1097-4172
Scope	General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology