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

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

Naldini L: Gene therapy returns to centre stage. Nature 2015, 526:351–360.

A journal article with 2 authors

Weaver AJ, Zwiers FW: Uncertainty in climate change. Nature 2000, 407:571–572.

A journal article with 3 authors

Sadeghi O, Zakharov LN, Nyman M: Crystal growth. Aqueous formation and manipulation of the iron-oxo Keggin ion. Science 2015, 347:1359–1362.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Munger SD, Lane AP, Zhong H, Leinders-Zufall T, Yau KW, Zufall F, Reed RR: Central role of the CNGA4 channel subunit in Ca2+-calmodulin-dependent odor adaptation. Science 2001, 294:2172–2175.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Miller MA: Internet Technologies Handbook. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2005.

An edited book

Ramos FF, Larios Rosillo V, Unger H (Eds): Advanced Distributed Systems: 5th International School and Symposium, ISSADS 2005, Guadalajara, Mexico, January 24-28, 2005, Revised Selected Papers. Springer; 2005.

A chapter in an edited book

Cadorin L, Knus M-A, Rost M: On the dimension and other numerical invariants of algebras and vector products. In Algebra and Number Theory: Proceedings of the Silver Jubilee Conference University of Hyderabad. Edited by Tandon R. Hindustan Book Agency; 2005:34–65.

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 Microbiology.

Blog post

O`Callaghan J: Is There Life On Mars? IFLScience 2017,

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: Weather Satellites: Action Needed to Resolve Status of the U.S. Geostationary Satellite Program. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1991.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Adelman SW: Early childhood nutritional responses to targeted food aid and social network disruptions in Ugandan internally displaced person’s camps. 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

Atkinson S, Davey M: Manslaughter Is Charge for 5 In Flint Crisis. New York Times 2017,

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 Microbiology
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	1369-5274
ISSN (online)	1879-0364
Scope	Microbiology Infectious Diseases Microbiology (medical)