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:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
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

Bailey ME. Planetary science. Where have all the comets gone? Science. 296(5576), 2151–2153 (2002).

A journal article with 2 authors

Huang Y, Li D. Soil nitric oxide emissions from terrestrial ecosystems in China: a synthesis of modeling and measurements. Sci. Rep. 4, 7406 (2014).

A journal article with 3 authors

Sakakura A, Ukai A, Ishihara K. Enantioselective halocyclization of polyprenoids induced by nucleophilic phosphoramidites. Nature. 445(7130), 900–903 (2007).

A journal article with 7 or more authors

Palmer LE, Rabinowicz PD, O’Shaughnessy AL, et al. Maize genome sequencing by methylation filtration. Science. 302(5653), 2115–2117 (2003).

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

Moloney MG. How to Solve Organic Reaction Mechanisms. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, UK.

An edited book

Liu Z, Zhang Z, editors. Engineering Trustworthy Software Systems: First International School, SETSS 2014, Chongqing, China, September 8-13, 2014. Tutorial Lectures. 1st ed. 2016. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

A chapter in an edited book

Smith LM, Campbell J. The Breakwells’ Tale. In: Families, Education and Giftedness: Case Studies in the Construction of High Achievement. Campbell J (Ed.), SensePublishers, Rotterdam, 77–93 (2012).

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

Andrew E. Virtual Distance: Technology Is Rewriting The Rulebook For Human Interaction [Internet]. IFLScience (2015). Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/technology/virtual-distance-technology-rewriting-rulebook-human-interaction/.

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. Aviation Security: Commercially Available Advanced Explosives Detection Devices. 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

Brown CE. Sources for the reevaluation of George Frederick Root’s career: The autobiography & a secular cantata. (2013).

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

Barron J. In a Move Away From Tradition, Cremations Increase. New York Times, A18 (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 title	Future Microbiology
Abbreviation	Future Microbiol.
ISSN (print)	1746-0913
ISSN (online)	1746-0921
Scope	Microbiology Microbiology (medical)

Research and Writing Guides