How to format your references using the Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences. 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

Blackmore S (2002) Environment. Biodiversity update--progress in taxonomy. Science 298:365

A journal article with 2 authors

Mounce RCP, Wills MA (2011) Phylogenetic position of Diania challenged. Nature 476:E1; discussion E3-4

A journal article with 3 authors

Gur I, Sawyer K, Prasher R (2012) Engineering. Searching for a better thermal battery. Science 335:1454–1455

A journal article with 5 or more authors

Adams GB, Chabner KT, Alley IR, et al (2006) Stem cell engraftment at the endosteal niche is specified by the calcium-sensing receptor. Nature 439:599–603

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Labadie N, Prins C, Prodhon C (2016) Metaheuristics for Vehicle Routing Problems. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ

An edited book

Dastani M, Hübner JF, Logan B (2013) Programming Multi-Agent Systems: 10th International Workshop, ProMAS 2012, Valencia, Spain, June 5, 2012, Revised Selected Papers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

A chapter in an edited book

Polizzotto K, Landman NH, Klug C (2015) Cameral Membranes, Pseudosutures, and Other Soft Tissue Imprints in Ammonoid Shells. In: Klug C, Korn D, De Baets K, et al (eds) Ammonoid Paleobiology: From anatomy to ecology. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 91–109

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 Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences.

Blog post

Andrew E (2014) Camelopardalid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/camelopardalid-meteor-shower-peaks-tonight/. 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 (1977) A Working Glossary of Computer Software Terms. 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

Ho L (2012) Determination of Ibuprofen Isotherm Using Supercritical Fluid Chromatography. Doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida

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

Shpigel B (2017) This Jet Still Answers to ‘Coach.’ New York Times D1

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	Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences
Abbreviation	Cell. Mol. Life Sci.
ISSN (print)	1420-682X
ISSN (online)	1420-9071
Scope	Cell Biology Molecular Biology Molecular Medicine Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience Pharmacology