How to format your references using the FEMS Microbiology Letters citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for FEMS Microbiology Letters. 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

Ciais P. Journal club. A geoscientist is astounded by Earth’s huge frozen carbon deposits. Nature 2009;462:393.

A journal article with 2 authors

Henriksen-Lacey M, Giner-Casares JJ. Nice to know you. Science 2015;349:1254.

A journal article with 3 authors

Alvarado D, Klein DE, Lemmon MA. ErbB2 resembles an autoinhibited invertebrate epidermal growth factor receptor. Nature 2009;461:287–91.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Jeon Y-J, Lee S, Kang R et al. Planar heterojunction perovskite solar cells with superior reproducibility. Sci Rep 2014;4:6953.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Hartmann AK, Weigt M. Phase Transitions in Combinatorial Optimization Problems. Weinheim, FRG: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 2005.

An edited book

Shen R, Qian W eds. Proceedings of the 27th Conference of Spacecraft TT&C Technology in China: Wider Space for TT&C. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2015.

A chapter in an edited book

Clarke R. PIAs in Australia: A Work-In-Progress Report. In: Wright D, Hert PD (eds.). Privacy Impact Assessment. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2012, 119–48.

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 FEMS Microbiology Letters.

Blog post

Carpineti A. Gluten-Free Food Is Not Healthier But Costs More. IFLScience 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. Implementation of Section 203, Public Law 91-441, on Payments for Independent Research and Development and Bid and Proposal Costs. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Borisova-Kidder A. Meta-Analytical Estimates of Values of Environmental Services Enhanced by Government Agricultural Conservation Programs. 2006.

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

Carlson L. Come Committed or Stay on the Couch. New York Times. February 21, 2010:MB3.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (Ciais 2009).
This sentence cites two references (Ciais 2009; Henriksen-Lacey and Giner-Casares 2015).

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

Two authors: (Henriksen-Lacey and Giner-Casares 2015)
Three authors: (Alvarado, Klein and Lemmon 2009)
4 or more authors: (Jeon et al. 2014)

About the journal

Full journal title	FEMS Microbiology Letters
Abbreviation	FEMS Microbiol. Lett.
ISSN (print)	0378-1097
ISSN (online)	1574-6968
Scope	Genetics Molecular Biology Microbiology