How to format your references using the eLife citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for eLife. 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	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Bowles S. 2008. Being human: Conflict: Altruism’s midwife. Nature 456:326–327.

A journal article with 2 authors

Chen W-P, Yang Z. 2004. Earthquakes beneath the Himalayas and Tibet: evidence for strong lithospheric mantle. Science 304:1949–1952.

A journal article with 3 authors

Carpi F, Bauer S, De Rossi D. 2010. Materials science. Stretching dielectric elastomer performance. Science 330:1759–1761.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Khan P, Saxena T, Jain H, Adarsh KV. 2014. Nanosecond light induced, thermally tunable transient dual absorption bands in a-Ge₅As₃₀Se₆₅ thin film. Sci Rep 4:6573.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Minns P, Elliott I. 2008. FSM-Based Digital Design Using Verilog HDL. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

An edited book

Klepaczko JR, Łodygowski T, editors. 2009. Advances in Constitutive Relations Applied in Computer Codes, CISM International Centre for Mechanical Sciences. Vienna: Springer.

A chapter in an edited book

Musselman JG. 2009. Natural Law for Teaching Ethics: An Essential Tool and Not a Seamless Web In: Cherry MJ, editor. The Normativity of the Natural: Human Goods, Human Virtues, and Human Flourishing, Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. pp. 55–74.

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 eLife.

Blog post

Fang J. 2014. Half of All Exoplanets Have Two Suns. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/space/half-all-exoplanets-have-two-suns/

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. 1987. Missile Development: Development Status of the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (No. NSIAD-87-168). Washington, DC: 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

Samble JN. 2017. Persistence and Advancement in NCAA Division I: Lived Experiences of Female Athletic Administrators (Doctoral dissertation). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University.

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

(nyt) SK. 2003. World Briefing | Europe: Russia: Hearing On Media Curbs. New York Times A6.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Bowles, 2008).
This sentence cites two references (Bowles, 2008; Chen and Yang, 2004).

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

Two authors: (Chen and Yang, 2004)
Three or more authors: (Khan et al., 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	eLife
ISSN (online)	2050-084X
Scope