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

Smaglik P (2002) Building the triangle: North Carolina. Nature 416: 4–5.

A journal article with 2 authors

Einum S, Fleming IA (2000) Highly fecund mothers sacrifice offspring survival to maximize fitness. Nature 405: 565–567.

A journal article with 3 authors

Collins SH, Wiggin MB, Sawicki GS (2015) Reducing the energy cost of human walking using an unpowered exoskeleton. Nature 522: 212–215.

A journal article with 11 or more authors

Baba H, Aziz F, Kaifu Y, Suwa G, Kono RT, Jacob T (2003) Homo erectus calvarium from the Pleistocene of Java. Science 299: 1384–1388.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Geren RL (2016) Applying the Building Code. John Wiley & Sons, Inc, Hoboken, NJ.

An edited book

Zhang Y (2015) Zhang Functions and Various Models. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

A chapter in an edited book

Hsu C-H, Tsai W-C (2015) A Design Strategy of Cultural and Creative Products on the Global Market. In Rau PLP (ed.), Cross-Cultural Design Methods, Practice and Impact: 7th International Conference, CCD 2015, Held as Part of HCI International 2015, Los Angeles, CA, USA, August 2-7, 2015, Proceedings, Part I pp 36–48. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

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, Sense Of Smell Linked With Mortality Risk, Last updated June 4, 2015, Accessed on June 4, 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 (1993) Space Operations: Archiving Space Science Data Needs Further Management Improvements. 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

Lambert M (2015) Generational Differences in the Workplace: The Perspectives of Three Generations on Career Mobility.

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

Gordon MR (2017) U.S. Military Says It Shot Down Drone That Attacked American Allies in Syria. New York Times A10.

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

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