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

DeFelipe J. From the connectome to the synaptome: an epic love story. Science 2010;330:1198–201.

A journal article with 2 authors

Dauphas N, Kasting JF. Low pCO2 in the pore water, not in the Archean air. Nature 2011;474:E2-3; discussion E4-5.

A journal article with 3 authors

Husale S, Persson HHJ, Sahin O. DNA nanomechanics allows direct digital detection of complementary DNA and microRNA targets. Nature 2009;462:1075–8.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Kim D, Park D, Choi S et al. Thalamic control of visceral nociception mediated by T-type Ca2+ channels. Science 2003;302:117–9.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Albalate A, Minker W. Semi-Supervised and Unsupervised Machine Learning. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2013.

An edited book

Makarychev A, Yatsyk A eds. Mega Events in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2016.

A chapter in an edited book

Curry GL, Feldman RM. Multiple-Stage Single-Product Factory Models. In: Feldman RM (ed.). Manufacturing Systems Modeling and Analysis. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2009, 125–57.

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

O`Callaghan J. Balloon Capsule That Will Take People To The Edge Of Space Completes Test Flight. 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. Chemical Assessments: Low Productivity and New Interagency Review Process Limit the Usefulness and Credibility of EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

Pham AT. Factorization of polynomials modulo a prime. 2012.

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

Dudziak ML. Obama’s Nixonian Precedent. New York Times. March 22, 2013:A29.

In-text citations

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

This sentence cites one reference (DeFelipe 2010).
This sentence cites two references (DeFelipe 2010; Dauphas and Kasting 2011).

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

Two authors: (Dauphas and Kasting 2011)
Three authors: (Husale, Persson and Sahin 2009)
4 or more authors: (Kim et al. 2003)

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