How to format your references using the Current Molecular Biology Reports citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Current Molecular Biology Reports. 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

1. Powell K. Molecular oncology: The positive in the negative. Nature. 2012;485:S52-3.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Seelig JD, Jayaraman V. Feature detection and orientation tuning in the Drosophila central complex. Nature. 2013;503:262–6.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. McPhaden MJ, Zebiak SE, Glantz MH. ENSO as an integrating concept in earth science. Science. 2006;314:1740–5.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Harris WM, Lombardo JJ, Nelson GJ, Lai B, Wang S, Vila-Comamala J, et al. Three-dimensional microstructural imaging of sulfur poisoning-induced degradation in a Ni-YSZ anode of solid oxide fuel cells. Sci Rep. 2014;4:5246.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Chu PP. Embedded SoPC Design with Nios II Processor and VHDL Examples. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2011.

An edited book

1. Askoxylakis I, Ioannidis S, Katsikas S, Meadows C, editors. Computer Security – ESORICS 2016: 21st European Symposium on Research in Computer Security, Heraklion, Greece, September 26-30, 2016, Proceedings, Part II. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Wefel S, Molitor P. Client Hardware-Token Based Single Sign-On over Several Servers without Trusted Online Third Party Server. In: Park JH, Zhan J, Lee C, Wang G, Kim T-H, Yeo S-S, editors. Advances in Information Security and Its Application: Third International Conference, ISA 2009, Seoul, Korea, June 25-27, 2009 Proceedings. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2009. p. 29–36.

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 Molecular Biology Reports.

Blog post

1. Luntz S. Pressure Drop Unleashes Eruptions [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2015 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/physics/pressure-drop-unleashes-eruptions/

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. Tax System Modernization: An Assessment of IRS’ Design Master Plan. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991 Jun. Report No.: IMTEC-91-53BR.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. Purdy DW. Identifying Shallow Foundation Failure Modes and Mechanisms Using Surveillance of a Transparent Granular Soil Surrogate [Doctoral dissertation]. [Boca Raton, FL]: Florida Atlantic University; 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. Crow K. Executive In-Baskets Meant for a Park Picnic. New York Times. 2002 Jun 30;145.

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	Current Molecular Biology Reports
Abbreviation	Curr. Mol. Biol. Rep.
ISSN (online)	2198-6428
Scope