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:

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

J. Whitelegge. Structural biology. Up close with membrane lipid-protein complexes. Science 2011, 334 (6054), 320–321.

A journal article with 2 authors

R. Hopkins, M.D. Rausher. Identification of two genes causing reinforcement in the Texas wildflower Phlox drummondii. Nature 2011, 469 (7330), 411–414.

A journal article with 3 authors

Y. Dubi, Y. Meir, Y. Avishai. Nature of the superconductor-insulator transition in disordered superconductors. Nature 2007, 449 (7164), 876–880.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

K. Lu, X. Heng, L. Garyu, et al. NMR detection of structures in the HIV-1 5’-leader RNA that regulate genome packaging. Science 2011, 334 (6053), 242–245.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

W. Chen, H. Xiao, Q. Wang, L. Zhao, M. Zhu. Integrated Vehicle Dynamics and Control; John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd, Singapore, 2016.

An edited book

L. de la Peña. The Emerging Quantum: The Physics Behind Quantum Mechanics; Cetto, A. M., Valdés Hernández, A., Eds.; Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

K.H. Lu, A.H. Klopp, P.T. Soliman, R.E. Schmandt. Increased Adiposity and Endometrial Cancer Risk. In Adipose Tissue and Cancer; Kolonin, M. G., Ed.; Springer, New York, NY, 2013; pp 53–69.

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

S. Luntz. The Chemistry of Fireworks https://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/chemistry-fireworks/ (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

Government Accountability Office. Overseas Allowances: Improvements Needed in Administration; NSIAD-90-46; U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1990.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

T. Buckingham. Every teacher an English teacher? Literacy strategy teaching and research in the content area of science education. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, 2012.

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

G. Vecsey. Sports Share the Stage at the White House. New York Times. February 16, 2011, p B16.

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 title	Chemical Biology Letters
ISSN (print)	2347-9825
Scope