How to format your references using the Genome Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Genome Biology. 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

1. Arrigo KR. Marine microorganisms and global nutrient cycles. Nature. 2005;437:349–55.

A journal article with 2 authors

1. Gray RA, Wikswo JP. Cardiovascular disease: several small shocks beat one big one. Nature. 2011;475:181–2.

A journal article with 3 authors

1. Bloss TA, Witze ES, Rothman JH. Suppression of CED-3-independent apoptosis by mitochondrial betaNAC in Caenorhabditis elegans. Nature. 2003;424:1066–71.

A journal article with 7 or more authors

1. Moellering RE, Cornejo M, Davis TN, Del Bianco C, Aster JC, Blacklow SC, et al. Direct inhibition of the NOTCH transcription factor complex. Nature. 2009;462:182–8.

Books and book chapters

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

An authored book

1. Stull C, Myers P, Scott DM. Tuned In. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2008.

An edited book

1. Buscema M, Tastle WJ, editors. Intelligent Data Mining in Law Enforcement Analytics: New Neural Networks Applied to Real Problems. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands; 2013.

A chapter in an edited book

1. Buragga K, Dhir A, Boreqqah AA. Facebook an Open Education Platform: Exploring Its Educational Uses. In: Stephanidis C, editor. HCI International 2013 - Posters’ Extended Abstracts: International Conference, HCI International 2013, Las Vegas, NV, USA, July 21-26, 2013, Proceedings, Part II. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2013. p. 18–22.

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 Genome Biology.

Blog post

1. Andrews R. Hungry Young Stars Change Color When They Eat Their Own Planets [Internet]. IFLScience. IFLScience; 2016 [cited 2018 Oct 30]. Available from: https://www.iflscience.com/space/hungry-young-stars-change-color-when-they-eat-their-own-planets/

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. Physical Infrastructure: Challenges and Investment Options for the Nation’s Infrastructure. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2008 May. Report No.: GAO-08-763T.

Theses and dissertations

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

Doctoral dissertation

1. O’Connor CS. Measurement of Dispersion and Attenuation in Granular Media using a Filter-Correlation Method [Doctoral dissertation]. [ Lafayette, LA]: University of Louisiana; 2015.

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. Brantley B. Fixing What Ain’t Broken. New York Times. 2017 Mar 10;C1.

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	Genome Biology
ISSN (online)	1474-760X
Scope

Research and Writing Guides