How to format your references using the Chemical Biology Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Chemical Biology Letters. 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
1.
R. Brandenberger. Astronomy. A texture in the sky? Science 2007, 318 (5856), 1560–1561.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
V. Maheshwari, R.F. Saraf. High-resolution thin-film device to sense texture by touch. Science 2006, 312 (5779), 1501–1504.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
S.E. Peters, D.C. Kelly, A.J. Fraass. Oceanographic controls on the diversity and extinction of planktonic foraminifera. Nature 2013, 493 (7432), 398–401.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
1.
S.-H. Su, W. Xu, J. Hai, Y.-F. Wu, F. Yu. Effects of statins-use for patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 4573.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
C. Furger. Live Cell Assays; John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 2016.
An edited book
1.
Exploring Digital Design: Multi-Disciplinary Design Practices; Wagner, I., Bratteteig, T., Stuedahl, D., Eds.; Computer Supported Cooperative Work; Springer, London, 2010.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
M. Sheng. Synapse Loss, Synaptic Plasticity and the Postsynaptic Density. In Synaptic Plasticity and the Mechanism of Alzheimer’s Disease; Selkoe, D. J., Triller, A., Christen, Y., Eds.; Research and Perspectives in Alzheimer’s Disease; Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2008; pp 51–62.

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 Chemical Biology Letters.

Blog post
1.
J. O`Callaghan. Cassini Snaps Images Of Weird “Ravioli Moon” Pan Orbiting Saturn https://www.iflscience.com/space/cassini-snaps-images-of-weird-ravioli-moon-pan-orbiting-saturn/ (accessed Oct 30, 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
1.
Government Accountability Office. Applying Agreed-Upon Procedures: Airport and Airway Trust Fund Excise Taxes; GAO-08-203R; U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2007.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
P. Schwarcz-Besson. The Field in Psychoanalytic Research Methodology. Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA, 2017.

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.
M. Billard. New Pose On the Mat: The Sleuth. New York Times. December 4, 2011, p MB1.

In-text citations

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

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 titleChemical Biology Letters
ISSN (print)2347-9825
Scope

Other styles