How to format your references using the Developmental Biology citation style

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

Masood, E., 2015. Major biodiversity initiative needs support. Nature 518, 7.

A journal article with 2 authors

Dunbar, R.I.M., Shultz, S., 2007. Evolution in the social brain. Science 317, 1344–1347.

A journal article with 3 authors

Fischer, J., Baumgartner, J., Marschner, C., 2005. Synthesis and structure of sila-adamantane. Science 310, 825.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Aizenberg, J., Tkachenko, A., Weiner, S., Addadi, L., Hendler, G., 2001. Calcitic microlenses as part of the photoreceptor system in brittlestars. Nature 412, 819–822.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

O’Connor, K., Aardema, F., Pélissier, M.-C., 2006. Beyond Reasonable Doubt. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.

An edited book

Schumpelick, V., Fitzgibbons, R.J. (Eds.), 2007. Recurrent Hernia: Prevention and Treatment. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

De Simone, A., Dong, Y., Vivancos, P.D., Foyer, C.H., 2015. GSH Partitioning Between the Nucleus and Cytosol in Arabidopsis thaliana, in: De Kok, L.J., Hawkesford, M.J., Rennenberg, H., Saito, K., Schnug, E. (Eds.), Molecular Physiology and Ecophysiology of Sulfur, Proceedings of the International Plant Sulfur Workshop. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp. 37–48.

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 Developmental Biology.

Blog post

Davis, J., 2017. Robotic Sleeve Developed To Keep Failing Hearts Beating [WWW Document]. IFLScience. URL https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/robotic-sleeve-developed-to-keep-failing-hearts-beating/ (accessed 10.30.18).

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, 2009. Student Achievement: Schools Use Multiple Strategies to Help Students Meet Academic Standards, Especially Schools with Higher Proportions of Low-Income and Minority Students (No. GAO-10-18). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Wilson, W.C., 2015. Life satisfaction of Air Force civilian male spouses (Doctoral dissertation). Capella University, Minneapolis, MN.

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

Kenigsberg, B., 2017. Behind the White Glasses. New York Times C13.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Masood, 2015).
This sentence cites two references (Dunbar and Shultz, 2007; Masood, 2015).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Dunbar and Shultz, 2007)
Three or more authors: (Aizenberg et al., 2001)

About the journal

Full journal title	Developmental Biology
Abbreviation	Dev. Biol.
ISSN (print)	0012-1606
Scope	Cell Biology Developmental Biology Molecular Biology