How to format your references using the Current Genetics citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Current Genetics. 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.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
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
MacWilliams B (2003) Russia pulls out of Antarctic station. Nature 422:104
A journal article with 2 authors
Vajda V, McLoughlin S (2004) Fungal proliferation at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. Science 303:1489
A journal article with 3 authors
Gawronski H, Mehlhorn M, Morgenstern K (2008) Imaging phonon excitation with atomic resolution. Science 319:930–933
A journal article with 5 or more authors
Jankowsky E, Gross CH, Shuman S, Pyle AM (2000) The DExH protein NPH-II is a processive and directional motor for unwinding RNA. Nature 403:447–451

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
Adhikari S (2013) Structural Dynamic Analysis with Generalized Damping Models. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, USA
An edited book
Maciaszek LA, Zhang K (eds) (2013) Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering: 6th International Conference, ENASE 2011, Beijing, China, June 8-11, 2011. Revised Selected Papers. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
A chapter in an edited book
Benz W (2006) Hyperbolic Geometry, Dimension-Free. In: Prékopa A, Molnár E (eds) Non-Euclidean Geometries: János Bolyai Memorial Volume. Springer US, Boston, MA, pp 97–107

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 Current Genetics.

Blog post
Andrew E (2014) Researchers Identify Genetic Recipe For Lizard Tail Regeneration. In: IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/researchers-identify-genetic-recipe-lizard-tail-regeneration/. 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 (2011) OPM Retirement Modernization: Longstanding Information Technology Management Weaknesses Need to Be Addressed. 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
Chung J (2015) Quasi-one-dimensional modeling of an adiabatic-compression preheated Ludwieg tube. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park

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
Erlanger S, Kanter J (2017) Austria’s Rightward Lurch Reflects Europe’s New Anti-Immigration Leanings. New York Times A5

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (MacWilliams 2003).
This sentence cites two references (MacWilliams 2003; Vajda and McLoughlin 2004).

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

  • Two authors: (Vajda and McLoughlin 2004)
  • Three or more authors: (Jankowsky et al. 2000)

About the journal

Full journal titleCurrent Genetics
AbbreviationCurr. Genet.
ISSN (print)0172-8083
ISSN (online)1432-0983
ScopeGenetics
General Medicine

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