How to format your references using the Current Opinion in Cell Biology citation style

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

Griffith LC: Neuroscience: What females really want. Nature 2014, 512:138–139.

A journal article with 2 authors

Dixson DL, Hay ME: Corals chemically cue mutualistic fishes to remove competing seaweeds. Science 2012, 338:804–807.

A journal article with 3 authors

Homer H, Gui L, Carroll J: A spindle assembly checkpoint protein functions in prophase I arrest and prometaphase progression. Science 2009, 326:991–994.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Cobo I, Martinelli P, Flández M, Bakiri L, Zhang M, Carrillo-de-Santa-Pau E, Jia J, Sánchez-Arévalo Lobo VJ, Megías D, Felipe I, et al.: Transcriptional regulation by NR5A2 links differentiation and inflammation in the pancreas. Nature 2018, 554:533–537.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Reid G: Dyslexia. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2011.

An edited book

Reiss CS (Ed): Neurotropic Viral Infections: Volume 2: Neurotropic Retroviruses, DNA Viruses, Immunity and Transmission. Springer International Publishing; 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Abbasi SA, Miller A: An Efficient Dispersion Control Chart. In IAENG Transactions on Engineering Technologies: Special Edition of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2011. Edited by Kim HK, Ao S-I, Rieger BB. Springer Netherlands; 2013:61–70.

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 Opinion in Cell Biology.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J: Enormous Meteor Caught On Camera In Bangkok. IFLScience 2015,

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: Student Loan Marketing Association’s Loan Consolidation Program. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1983.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Huffman KD: Teacher and administrator perceptions of a balanced school calendar and its effects on students in poverty. 2009,

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

Koniak SP, Cohen GM, Dana DA, Ross T: How Washington Abetted the Bank Job. New York Times 2010,

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 Opinion in Cell Biology
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Cell Biol.
ISSN (print)	0955-0674
ISSN (online)	1879-0410
Scope	Cell Biology