How to format your references using the Future Microbiology citation style

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

PaperpileThe citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNoteFind the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and othersThe style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeXBibTeX 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
1.
Dragert H. Geophysics. Mediating plate convergence. Science. 315(5811), 471–472 (2007).
A journal article with 2 authors
1.
Chhowalla M, Amaratunga GA. Thin films of fullerene-like MoS2 nanoparticles with ultra-low friction and wear. Nature. 407(6801), 164–167 (2000).
A journal article with 3 authors
1.
Brun T, Devetak I, Hsieh M-H. Correcting quantum errors with entanglement. Science. 314(5798), 436–439 (2006).
A journal article with 7 or more authors
1.
Liu Y, Granet D, Lin H, et al. Liu et al. reply. Nature. 556(7699), E3–E4 (2018).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book
1.
Uribe S. Frontier Road. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.
An edited book
1.
Dediu A-H, Martín-Vide C, Truthe B, editors. Algorithms for Computational Biology: First International Conference, AlCoB 2014, Tarragona, Spain, July 1-3, 2014, Proceedigns. Springer International Publishing, Cham.
A chapter in an edited book
1.
Parrochia D, Neuville P. Generalized Classifications. In: Towards a General Theory of Classifications. Neuville P (Ed.), Springer, Basel, 125–145 (2013).

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 Future Microbiology.

Blog post
1.
Andrew E. Six bizarre feeding tactics from the depths of our oceans [Internet]. IFLScience (2014). Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/six-bizarre-feeding-tactics-depths-our-oceans/.

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
1.
Government Accountability Office. Compensatory Education: Chapter 1’s Comparability of Services Provision. 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
1.
Joseph OW. A study of the effectiveness of mentor roles in a rural school district. (2009).

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
1.
Grynbaum MM. Lead Story. New York Times, ST1 (2017).

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 titleFuture Microbiology
AbbreviationFuture Microbiol.
ISSN (print)1746-0913
ISSN (online)1746-0921
ScopeMicrobiology
Microbiology (medical)

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