How to format your references using the Computational Biology and Chemistry citation style

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

Zaumseil, J., 2014. Applied physics. Electronic control of circularly polarized light emission. Science 344, 702–703.

A journal article with 2 authors

Aral, S., Walker, D., 2012. Identifying influential and susceptible members of social networks. Science 337, 337–341.

A journal article with 3 authors

Heymann, D.L., Sutter, R.W., Aylward, R.B., 2005. A global call for new polio vaccines. Nature 434, 699–700.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Bearhop, S., Fiedler, W., Furness, R.W., Votier, S.C., Waldron, S., Newton, J., Bowen, G.J., Berthold, P., Farnsworth, K., 2005. Assortative mating as a mechanism for rapid evolution of a migratory divide. Science 310, 502–504.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Joseph, C.L., Bernal, S., 2016. Modern Devices. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Koenig, H.G., 2014. Health and Well-Being in Islamic Societies: Background, Research, and Applications. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Huneman, P., 2015. Selection, in: Heams, T., Huneman, P., Lecointre, G., Silberstein, M. (Eds.), Handbook of Evolutionary Thinking in the Sciences. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp. 37–76.

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 Computational Biology and Chemistry.

Blog post

Luntz, S., 2014. Fossil Clue Found To Epic Ancient Battle Between Huge Predators [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/clue-found-epic-ancient-battle/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2002. School Finance: Per-Pupil Spending Differences between Selected Inner City and Suburban Schools Varied by Metropolitan Area (No. GAO-03-234). 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

Bockler, T., 2014. Legal advocacy program for low-income children with disabilities: A grant proposal (Doctoral dissertation). California State University, Long Beach, Long Beach, CA.

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

Crow, K., 2001. Neighbors Say a School Is Just a Growing Bully. New York Times 147.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Zaumseil, 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Aral and Walker, 2012; Zaumseil, 2014).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Aral and Walker, 2012)
Three or more authors: (Bearhop et al., 2005)

About the journal

Full journal title	Computational Biology and Chemistry
Abbreviation	Comput. Biol. Chem.
ISSN (print)	1476-9271
Scope	Biochemistry Structural Biology Organic Chemistry Computational Mathematics

Research and Writing Guides