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

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
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]
D. Gershon, Structural genomics--from cottage industry to industrial revolution, Nature. 408 (2000) 273–274.
A journal article with 2 authors
[1]
M.R. Milad, G.J. Quirk, Neurons in medial prefrontal cortex signal memory for fear extinction, Nature. 420 (2002) 70–74.
A journal article with 3 authors
[1]
C. Pfleiderer, S.R. Julian, G.G. Lonzarich, Non-Fermi-liquid nature of the normal state of itinerant-electron ferromagnets, Nature. 414 (2001) 427–430.
A journal article with 4 or more authors
[1]
T. Gross, A. Siepmann, D. Sturm, M. Windgassen, J.J. Scarcelli, M. Seedorf, C.N. Cole, H. Krebber, The DEAD-box RNA helicase Dbp5 functions in translation termination, Science. 315 (2007) 646–649.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
[1]
B. Homès, Fundamentals of Software Testing, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ, 2012.
An edited book
[1]
M. Khouzani, E. Panaousis, G. Theodorakopoulos, eds., Decision and Game Theory for Security: 6th International Conference, GameSec 2015, London, UK, November 4-5, 2015, Proceedings, 1st ed. 2015, Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2015.
A chapter in an edited book
[1]
F. Logozzo, H. Venter, RATA: Rapid Atomic Type Analysis by Abstract Interpretation – Application to JavaScript Optimization, in: R. Gupta (Ed.), Compiler Construction: 19th International Conference, CC 2010, Held as Part of the Joint European Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2010, Paphos, Cyprus, March 20-28, 2010. Proceedings, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2010: pp. 66–83.

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 Plant Biology.

Blog post
[1]
E. Andrew, LightSail Loses Contact Thanks To Software Glitch, IFLScience. (2015). https://www.iflscience.com/space/software-glitch-halts-solar-sail/ (accessed October 30, 2018).

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, ADP Budget: Potential Reductions to the Department of the Air Force’s Budget Request, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1990.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
[1]
M.A. Daum, Busy Fingers, Wordless Thoughts: Entering the Knot of Compulsive Hair Twisting, Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2012.

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]
Sophia Kishkovsky; Compiled by, Arts, Briefly; Ukrainian Song Rewritten for Eurovision Contest, New York Times. (2005) E2.

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 Plant Biology
AbbreviationCurr. Plant Biol.
ISSN (print)2214-6628
ScopePlant Science
Biochemistry
Cell Biology
Developmental Biology
Genetics

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