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

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteDownload the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1.
Knight J: Turning technology into gold. Nature 2003, 426:708.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Gray GM, Cohen JT: Policy: Rethink chemical risk assessments. Nature 2012, 489:27–28.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Reinhard J, Srinivasan MV, Zhang S: Olfaction: scent-triggered navigation in honeybees. Nature 2004, 427:411.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
1.
Soma S, Shimegi S, Suematsu N, Sato H: Cholinergic modulation of response gain in the rat primary visual cortex. Sci Rep 2013, 3:1138.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Seabridge A, Morgan S: Air Travel and Health. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd; 2010.
An edited book
1.
Zavoral F, Yaghob J, Pichappan P, El-Qawasmeh E (Eds): Networked Digital Technologies: Second International Conference, NDT 2010, Prague, Czech Republic, July 7-9, 2010. Proceedings, Part I. Springer; 2010.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Tack D, Appiah V: Acquisition Protocols for Thoracic CT. In Multidetector-Row CT of the Thorax. Edited by Schoepf UJ, Meinel FG. Springer International Publishing; 2016:59–68.

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 Structural Biology.

Blog post
1.
Andrew E: Three New Species of Antechinus Discovered in Australia. IFLScience 2013,

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
1.
Government Accountability Office: Information on the New Community of Soul City, North Carolina. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1975.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Norris EL: A depth psychological view of the Christian myth: C. G. Jung, Elizabeth Boyden Howes, and the Guild for Psychological Studies. 2008,

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
1.
Kelly C: With Cliburn Gone, Competition Tries to Adjust. New York Times 2013,

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 titleCurrent Opinion in Structural Biology
AbbreviationCurr. Opin. Struct. Biol.
ISSN (print)0959-440X
ISSN (online)1879-033X
ScopeMolecular Biology
Structural Biology

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