How to format your references using the Cell Communication and Signaling citation style

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

1. Powell K. Make your point. Nature. 2005;434:416–7.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Lease RO, Ehlers TA. Incision into the eastern Andean Plateau during Pliocene cooling. Science. 2013;341:774–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Muchnik L, Aral S, Taylor SJ. Social influence bias: a randomized experiment. Science. 2013;341:647–51.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Idnurm A, Walton FJ, Floyd A, Heitman J. Identification of the sex genes in an early diverged fungus. Nature. 2008;451:193–6.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Schneider BD. Energy Leadership. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2007.

An edited book

1. Hofmann E. Ways Out of the Working Capital Trap: Empowering Self-Financing Growth Through Modern Supply Management. Maucher D, Piesker S, Richter P, editors. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Ralston NVC, Azenkeng A, Raymond LJ. Mercury-Dependent Inhibition of Selenoenzymes and Mercury Toxicity. In: Ceccatelli S, Aschner M, editors. Methylmercury and Neurotoxicity. Boston, MA: Springer US; 2012. p. 91–9.

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 Communication and Signaling.

Blog post

1. Hale T. Heartbeats Of Dogs And Their Owners Sync-Up When They’re Reunited [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/dog-and-their-owners-heart-beats-sync-when-theyre-reunited/

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. NASA Designation of Their Ames Facility to Be Lead Center for Helicopter Research and Development. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1976 Nov. Report No.: LCD-77-301.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Tofthagen CS. Development and psychometric evaluation of the Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy Assessment Tool [Doctoral dissertation]. [Tampa, FL]: University of South Florida; 2008.

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. Poniewozik J. A Sequel Rings Familiar, But Keeps the Fun Intact. New York Times. 2017 Oct 26;C1.

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	Cell Communication and Signaling
Abbreviation	Cell Commun. Signal.
ISSN (online)	1478-811X
Scope	Biochemistry Cell Biology Molecular Biology