How to format your references using the Cells citation style

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

Kaiser, R. Flowers and Fungi Use Scents to Mimic Each Other. Science 2006, 311, 806–807.

A journal article with 2 authors

Nogueiras, R.; Tschöp, M. Biomedicine. Separation of Conjoined Hormones Yields Appetite Rivals. Science 2005, 310, 985–986.

A journal article with 3 authors

Parker, J.D.; Burkepile, D.E.; Hay, M.E. Opposing Effects of Native and Exotic Herbivores on Plant Invasions. Science 2006, 311, 1459–1461.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Ong, Q.-R.; Chan, E.S.; Lim, M.-L.; Cole, G.M.; Wong, B.-S. Reduced Phosphorylation of Brain Insulin Receptor Substrate and Akt Proteins in Apolipoprotein-E4 Targeted Replacement Mice. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 3754.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Exposito, E.; Diop, C. Smart SOA Platforms in Cloud Computing Architectures; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2014; ISBN 9781118761489.

An edited book

Twenty-First Century Learning by Doing; Meloy, J.M., Ed.; SensePublishers: Rotterdam, 2012; ISBN 9789462090989.

A chapter in an edited book

Zeiliger, R.; Esnault, L. The Constructivist Mapping of Internet Information at Work with Nestor. In Knowledge Cartography: Software Tools and Mapping Techniques; Okada, A., Shum, S.B., Sherborne, T., Eds.; Advanced Information and Knowledge Processing; Springer: London, 2008; pp. 89–111 ISBN 9781848001480.

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 Cells.

Blog post

Andrew, E. This Is What Our Night Sky Would Look Like If Celestial Bodies Were Closer To Earth Available online: https://www.iflscience.com/space/how-our-night-sky-would-look-if-celestial-bodies-were-closer-earth/ (accessed on 30 October 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 Federal Research: Information on the Advanced Technology Program’s 1997 Award Selection; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1998;

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Bell, K.D. Fatherhood Connected: A Curriculum Development Project for Adolescent Fathers in the Juvenile Justice System. Doctoral dissertation, California State University, Long Beach: Long Beach, CA, 2010.

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

Baker, L. A Community Comes to a University. New York Times 2006, RE11.

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	Cells
Abbreviation	Cells
ISSN (online)	2073-4409
Scope