How to format your references using the EMBO reports citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for EMBO reports. 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

Cardinale B (2012) Ecology. Impacts of biodiversity loss. Science 336: 552–553

A journal article with 2 authors

Benartzi S & Thaler RH (2013) Economics. Behavioral economics and the retirement savings crisis. Science 339: 1152–1153

A journal article with 3 authors

Stephens IEL, Elias JS & Shao-Horn Y (2015) CATALYSIS. The importance of being together. Science 350: 164–165

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Li Q, Zhang W, Miljanić OS, Sue C-H, Zhao Y-L, Liu L, Knobler CB, Stoddart JF & Yaghi OM (2009) Docking in metal-organic frameworks. Science 325: 855–859

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Salleh S, Zomaya AY, Olariu S & Sanugi B (2005) Numerical Simulations and Case Studies Using Visual C++.Net Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

An edited book

Blackmon SH, Kim MP & Dickinson KJ eds. (2015) Atlas of Esophageal Disease and Intervention: A Multidisciplinary Approach New York, NY: Springer

A chapter in an edited book

Aadland K (2016) The Performative Relation Between Storyteller, Story, and Children. In Learning across Contexts in the Knowledge Society, Erstad O Kumpulainen K Mäkitalo Å Schrøder KC Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt P & Jóhannsdóttir T (eds) pp 61–84. Rotterdam: SensePublishers

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 EMBO reports.

Blog post

Davis J (2017) The World’s Oceans Are Warming 13% Faster Than Previously Thought. IFLScience

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

Taylor WA (2010) Every citizen a soldier: The U.S. Army’s campaign for universal military training following World War II.

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

Brantley B (2017) Revealing What You May Not Care to Tell. New York Times: C5

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Cardinale, 2012).
This sentence cites two references (Cardinale, 2012; Benartzi & Thaler, 2013).

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

Two authors: (Benartzi & Thaler, 2013)
Three or more authors: (Li et al, 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	EMBO reports
Abbreviation	EMBO Rep.
ISSN (print)	1469-221X
ISSN (online)	1469-3178
Scope	Biochemistry Genetics Molecular Biology