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

Goodman S (2001) Battle to save beleaguered beluga. Nature 412: 108.

A journal article with 2 authors

Conrado RJ, Gonzalez R (2014) Chemistry. Envisioning the bioconversion of methane to liquid fuels. Science 343: 621–623.

A journal article with 3 authors

Hamilton MJ, Walker RS, Kesler DC (2014) Crash and rebound of indigenous populations in lowland South America. Sci Rep 4: 4541.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Borgia A, Borgia MB, Bugge K, Kissling VM, Heidarsson PO, Fernandes CB, Sottini A, Soranno A, Buholzer KJ, Nettels D, et al. (2018) Extreme disorder in an ultrahigh-affinity protein complex. Nature 555: 61–66.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Conklin AR Jr (2005) Introduction to Soil Chemistry. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Eckermann E, ed. (2014) Gender, Lifespan and Quality of Life: An International Perspective. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht.

A chapter in an edited book

Kittsteiner T, Ockenfels A (2008) On the Design of Simple Multi-unit Online Auctions. In Gimpel H, Jennings NR, Kersten GE, Ockenfels A, Weinhardt C (eds.), Negotiation, Auctions, and Market Engineering: International Seminar, Dagstuhl Castle, Germany, November 12-17, 2006, Revised Selected Papers pp 68–71. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

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

IFLScience, These Cute Sea Slugs Are The Sheep Of The Sea, Last updated July 31, 2015, Accessed on July 31, 2015.

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 (1994) Strategic Mobility: Serious Problems Remain in U.S. Deployment Capabilities. 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

Vargo G (2010) Social protest and the novel: Chartism, the radical press, and early Victorian fiction.

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

Schilling MK (2017) The Look of ’70s SoHo — Captured in One Apartment. New York Times M2240.

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