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

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

John P: Applied physics. Toward diamond lasers. Science 2001, 292:1847–1848.

A journal article with 2 authors

Gottfried K, Salpeter EE: Obituary: Hans A. Bethe (1906-2005). Nature 2005, 434:970–971.

A journal article with 3 authors

Rohde DLT, Olson S, Chang JT: Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans. Nature 2004, 431:562–566.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Zhao J, Wang L, Wang Y, Weng X, Li S, Jiang Y: Developmental tuning of reflexive attentional effect to biological motion cues. Sci Rep 2014, 4:5558.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Holzer SM: Statische Beurteilung Historischer Tragwerke. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA; 2015.

An edited book

Sumathi S: Solar PV and Wind Energy Conversion Systems: An Introduction to Theory, Modeling with MATLAB/SIMULINK, and the Role of Soft Computing Techniques. Springer International Publishing; 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

McGonagle JJ, Vella CM: Figuring Out What You Really Need to Know. In Proactive Intelligence: The Successful Executive’s Guide to Intelligence. Edited by Vella CM. Springer; 2012:41–52.

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 Plant Biology.

Blog post

Andrew D: New Findings: Anxiety Is Linked To Death From Cancer In Men. IFLScience 2016,

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: Electronic Disability Claims Processing: Social Security Administration’s Accelerated Strategy Faces Significant Risks. U.S. Government Printing Office; 2003.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Grantham SC: Dual Eligibles’ Experience of Care in North Carolina’s Patient-Centered Medical Home. 2014,

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

Vecsey G: Obama Is President, but Football Is King. New York Times 2011,

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 Plant Biology
Abbreviation	Curr. Opin. Plant Biol.
ISSN (print)	1369-5266
ISSN (online)	1879-0356
Scope	Plant Science