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

Reich JG: Embryonic stem cells. The debate in Germany. Science 2002, 296:265.

A journal article with 2 authors

Ferdinand NK, Opitz B: Different aspects of performance feedback engage different brain areas: disentangling valence and expectancy in feedback processing. Sci Rep 2014, 4:5986.

A journal article with 3 authors

Nielsen MH, Aloni S, De Yoreo JJ: In situ TEM imaging of CaCO₃ nucleation reveals coexistence of direct and indirect pathways. Science 2014, 345:1158–1162.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Hilley GE, Bürgmann R, Ferretti A, Novali F, Rocca F: Dynamics of slow-moving landslides from permanent scatterer analysis. Science 2004, 304:1952–1955.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Carroll N: Minerva’s Night Out. A John Wiley & Sons; 2013.

An edited book

Delany SJ, Ontañón S (Eds): Case-Based Reasoning Research and Development: 21st International Conference, ICCBR 2013, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA, July 8-11, 2013. Proceedings. Springer; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

de Alfaro L, da Silva LD, Faella M, Legay A, Roy P, Sorea M: Sociable Interfaces. In Frontiers of Combining Systems: 5th International Workshop, FroCoS 2005, Vienna, Austria, September 19-21, 2005. Proceedings. Edited by Gramlich B. Springer; 2005:81–105.

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

Fang J: Killer Cholera Bacterium Stabs Others With Tiny Spear, Steals DNA. 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: Federal Communications Commission: Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2000. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2000.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Brigida MD: Target stock price runup prior to acquisitions. 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

Mann M: The Other Side of Boredom. 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 Microbiology
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	1369-5274
ISSN (online)	1879-0364
Scope	Microbiology Infectious Diseases Microbiology (medical)