How to format your references using the Developmental Cell citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Developmental Cell. 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.
Nabel, G.J. (2009). Philosophy of science. The coordinates of truth. Science 326, 53–54.
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Jacobs, H.O., and Whitesides, G.M. (2001). Submicrometer patterning of charge in thin-film electrets. Science 291, 1763–1766.
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Vassilopoulos, G., Wang, P.-R., and Russell, D.W. (2003). Transplanted bone marrow regenerates liver by cell fusion. Nature 422, 901–904.
A journal article with 11 or more authors
1.
Rottmann, M., McNamara, C., Yeung, B.K.S., Lee, M.C.S., Zou, B., Russell, B., Seitz, P., Plouffe, D.M., Dharia, N.V., Tan, J., et al. (2010). Spiroindolones, a potent compound class for the treatment of malaria. Science 329, 1175–1180.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Sarkar, T.K., Salazar-Palma, M., and Mokole, E.L. (2007). Physics of Multiantenna Systems and Broadband Processing (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).
An edited book
1.
Odell, J., Giorgini, P., and Müller, J.P. eds. (2005). Agent-Oriented Software Engineering V: 5th International Workshop, AOSE 2004, New York, NY, USA, July 19, 2004. Revised Selected Papers (Springer).
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Schneider, L., Bach, V., and Finkbeiner, M. (2016). LCA Perspectives for Resource Efficiency Assessment. In Special Types of Life Cycle Assessment LCA Compendium – The Complete World of Life Cycle Assessment., M. Finkbeiner, ed. (Springer Netherlands), pp. 179–218.

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 Cell.

Blog post
1.
Fang, J. (2014). Ravens Keep Track of Others’ Ranks. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ravens-keep-track-others-ranks/.

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 (1992). The Civil Division, 1956-1972: Interview With Gregory J. Ahart, Henry Eschwege, and Victor L. Lowe (U.S. Government Printing Office).

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation
1.
Nersisyan, H.A. (2017). Armenian American Student Perceptions of Campus Climate: Examining the Conditions That Support or Inhibit Their College Experience.

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.
Kovaleski, S.F., Alter, A., and Howard, J.C. (2015). Friends, Fans and Now Alabama Debate the State of Harper Lee. New York Times, A1.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference 2.
This sentence cites two references 2,4.
This sentence cites four references 2,4,6,8.

About the journal

Full journal titleDevelopmental Cell
AbbreviationDev. Cell
ISSN (print)1534-5807
ISSN (online)1878-1551
ScopeDevelopmental Biology

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