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

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

Brown JR: Climate science: El Niño’s variable history. Nature 2014, 515:494–495.

A journal article with 2 authors

Sarewitz D, Nelson R: Three rules for technological fixes. Nature 2008, 456:871–872.

A journal article with 3 authors

Thomas JA, Simcox DJ, Clarke RT: Successful conservation of a threatened Maculinea butterfly. Science 2009, 325:80–83.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Polyak L, Edwards MH, Coakley BJ, Jakobsson M: Ice shelves in the Pleistocene Arctic Ocean inferred from glaciogenic deep-sea bedforms. Nature 2001, 410:453–457.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Burnham D, Skilleås OM: The Aesthetics of Wine. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2012.

An edited book

Liu X-J: Parallel Kinematics: Type, Kinematics, and Optimal Design. Springer; 2014.

A chapter in an edited book

Kaushika ND, Reddy KS, Kaushik K: Conventional Energy and Power System. In Sustainable Energy and the Environment: A Clean Technology Approach. Edited by Reddy KS, Kaushik K. Springer International Publishing; 2016:43–60.

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 Chemical Biology.

Blog post

Andrew E: Scientists Make Progress In The Development Of A “One-Size-Fits-All” Artificial Blood. IFLScience 2014,

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: Opportunities for Improving Cash Management Practices, Regional Finance and Data Processing Center, Paris, France. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1972.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Grosso T: Exploring How Older Adults Who Qualify for the Association on Aging with Developmental Disabilities (AADD) Programs and Services Learn to Successfully Age in Place. 2015,

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

Hodara S: Contrasting Art and Creating Dialogue. New York Times 2015,

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 Chemical Biology
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol.
ISSN (print)	1367-5931
ISSN (online)	1879-0402
Scope	Biochemistry Analytical Chemistry